


shrunk, through the magic door

by wearethewitches



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blanket Permission, Divination, Fix-It, Gen, Harry Potter was Raised by Sirius Black, Time Travel, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-11 01:32:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Various Harry Potter snippets. Some crossovers.





	1. #dogs don't land on their feet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the Prisoner of Azkaban movie soundtrack because it was the BEST of all the movies, hands down.

Bellatrix’s spell is a nasty one – paralytic and a literal _nightmare_. Sirius knows it has to be, it _has to be the nightmare curse_ because if it isn’t, then- then Remus is dead with a noose swinging him from the rafters of the room and Harry is choking on his own blood, a sear across his chest scoring a deep line through his ribs.

One thing he knows for certain is that he’s falling. Sirius’ sense of balance catches it as it begins and the sensation of an uncontrollable fall takes over any other feeling he might have, including the nightmare.

…which makes no sense, but the paralysis is gone and _Merlin’s balls, I’m falling!_ Sirius flails, arms waving about. He twists rapidly in the air and he has no idea which way is up-

Sirius hits the ground hard.

The short scream immediately emitted from a nearby person barely registers, Sirius too busy groaning and getting his bearings. Happily enough, he doesn’t seem to be injured, despite his lengthy fall. He pushes up from the ground, glancing around at the surrounding garden, full of dry, browning grass and dying flower-bushes.

Sirius straightens, patting his pockets for his wand, only to freeze at the sight of a small, wide-eyed boy holding up a stick defensively barely two metres in front of him.

He has Lily’s green eyes and messy black hair that curls delicately over his forehead, barely concealing the familiar lightning-bolt scar, the mess of white tissue livid against his dark tan skin. Sirius stares, because _this is his godson._ A pintsize clone of his godson, maybe five years old at the most, but his godson all the same.

“Are you okay?” Harry suddenly questions in a whisper, voice so small and young.

“I…” Sirius croaks, all of a sudden feeling so _tired_ , like the life has been sucked out of him. He draws in a deep breath, the hot air almost burning his lungs, finding his wand hanging around his neck as it had in the old days, before he invested in a wand holster. “Who are you?” he questions in confusion.

“I’m Freak,” Harry says and Sirius is filled with a sudden, stomach-dropping horror. “Who are you?”

Sirius hesitates, glancing around the garden again. He can see the silhouette of a person in the kitchen and then their face as they lean forwards, staring in horror at him through the window. _Petunia_ , he recognises a moment later, before she lets out a shriek.

Harry in front of him twists to face her and Sirius makes a split-second decision, lunging forwards and grabbing Harry by his shoulder. Before Harry can move, Sirius turns on the spot, apparating out of the Dursley’s back garden, only briefly surprised there’s no anti-apparation ward.

They reappear on the step of 12, Grimmauld Place, Harry wobbling, arms flailing like Sirius’ had been, only a few minutes beforehand. Sirius hauls him up against him, stopping him from moving and tripping off the top step.

“You’re safe from them, Harry,” Sirius promises, but his godson still struggles. To make it easier on them both, Sirius goes down a few steps, forcibly setting Harry down on the cracked stone. “Harry, Harry, I need you to stop moving-”

“Where are we? What just happened? Who _are_ you?” Harry cries, hitting Sirius’ head with his stick. Sirius flinches, grasping it and holding it still. “Where’s Number Four?”

“We’re in London, Harry, at my home.” Sirius explains calmly, breathing slowly. “My name is Sirius Black and I’m your-” the words stick in his throat. _Your godfather_ , he thinks as Harry looks at him in confusion. “I’m your…”

“I thought you were dead,” Harry whispers, eyes widening. “Aunt Petunia said you were dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Sirius confirms, before abruptly realising Harry thinks he’s _James._ Expression shifting to match Harry’s, there’s a long moment of silence before Harry launches himself forwards, dropping his stick – squashing it between them – to wrap his arms around Sirius’ neck.

“You’re alive! You’ve come to take me away! Am I going to live with you now? Is my mummy alive, too?”

Sirius’ heart aches sharply, before he hugs Harry tightly. “No, kiddo,” he murmurs. “Your mum’s gone.” Harry tenses in his arms for a second, but then relaxes again.

“Okay,” he murmurs sadly.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Sirius reaches up with his spare hand to stroke Harry’s mop of hair, carding his fingers through it. A small rhythm generates, before Harry wriggles back out of his grasp, disappointing him a little until he sees Harry’s wrinkled nose. “What?”

“You smell funny,” Harry says after a moment. Sirius frowns before taking a look at himself. To his own confusion, he’s in his old Azkaban inmate robes, but they’re in much better shape than from when he originally left that damned prison. There’s dirt under his long nails and rubbing at his skin proves there to be more than just a fine layer of grease there.

“I’m a mess,” Sirius mutters, grimacing. Looking up at Number 12 and seeing the open blinds, it suddenly occurs to him that- that if he’d travelled in time, his mother might not be dead yet. “How old are you?” he asks Harry.

“Don’t you know that?”

“I was put in a place where there aren’t any clocks,” Sirius replies, standing shakily, muscles weak and groaning. Gripping the wand around his neck – _how can I have a wand? Did I die in the Department of Mysteries? How am I even here? –_ Sirius casts a time charm. The answer both astounds him and makes Sirius feel uneasy.

“What’s that?” Harry gasps, standing up from the step. “How did all those numbers appear?”

“Magic. We’re wizards, Harry,” Sirius says, taking his hand. “The numbers mean that it’s eleven forty-eight in the morning, a Wednesday and the first of August, nineteen eighty-four. Congratulations, kiddo, your fourth birthday was yesterday.”

“I’m four?” Harry says in an awed voice.

“Yeah, you’re four,” Sirius confirms, feeling angry that the Dursley’s ever had custody of Harry – reminding him, abruptly, of Harry’s introduction. “Your name isn’t Freak,” he says, crouching briefly so to be on Harry’s eye-level. “It’s not Freak.”

Harry frowns, thick brows knitting together just like James’ used to. “But-”

“No buts,” Sirius interrupts. “Your mother named you Harry, after her mother, Harriet Evans.”

“I don’t like that name,” Harry says in reply. “Dudley’s got a friend called Harry. He isn’t nice.”

“…right,” Sirius mutters, before wondering _how the fuck_ he’s going to do this. No doubt the blood-wards around Privet Drive had already begun screaming at Dumbledore via his enchanted silver instruments.

 _Maybe I can make this work,_ he thinks. _Harry thinks I’m his dad and he doesn’t like his name…_ oh, how both those facts burn a hole inside of him, but Sirius has to make this work, somehow. _Bellatrix cursed me,_ he thinks, _and I fell._

In his head, Sirius reviews the geography of that room in the Department of Mysteries.

“I fell through the Veil of Death,” he says out loud, in an attempt to stick the reality of this situation in his head. _Is this what happens when people are chucked in there? They get to relive their lives twelve years in the past?_

“What’s that?” Harry questions, childish curiosity clear. Sirius can tell if he can divert the topic, Harry won’t care about the Veil anymore – so he does.

“If you could choose a name for yourself, what would it be?” he questions, forcing himself to run through all the available Black names. _Leo would be an awesome name._ Sirius tries to imagine thinking of the boy in front of him by different names, standing straight again so as to stretch his legs.

Looking up at Number 12 again, he eyes each of the windows, stopping still upon seeing Kreacher staring at him with beady eyes from the third floor balcony. As soon as Kreacher sees himself get caught, he disappears – probably to find Sirius’ mother.

 _She doesn’t die till 1992, dammit._ Sirius grimaces, before picking Harry up and putting him on his hip, finally chucking the stick away. Harry grips tight to his prison robe, swaying slightly before curling up against his chest. Taking his wand from its chain around his neck, Sirius does as many refreshing charms as he can on himself, scouring his yellow skin red getting the muck off with _scourgify_ rather than _tergeo._

Harry _oohs_ and _aahs_ at the magic, asking to see more. Sirius knows he only has a limited time to do anything before his mother either opens the door or boots him from the property. Frankly, he doesn’t know which one is worse.

 _These split-second decisions I’m making are questionable,_ Sirius thinks as he nods, unlatching one of Harry’s hands from his robe.

“This will hurt, but it won’t last very long, I promise.” Sirius swears, before slashing small cuts in either of their palms. Harry flinches, biting his lip hard enough it bleeds. Sirius clamps their hands together.

“I, Sirius Orion Black, take this child as my own in blood. I will maintain them; I will protect them; I will provide a home for them. These things I swear, my magic forfeit should I purposefully break my vow.”

As he speaks, streaks of golden flame curl around their joined hands, entrancing Harry. Sirius can feel the magic surround them like static – but quickly, he becomes very glad he swore this vow inside the boundaries of Number 12.

Harry’s eyes roll back, his scar sparking actual lightning as a black shadow begins to leak out. The skin tears apart, beads of blood trailing down his forehead. The shadow is monstrous and Sirius stares, horrified, as it comes all pouring out, faster and faster until a person-sized cloud forms above their head.

A face forms, before it lets out a scream that Sirius would not have been able to hear if not for Padfoot’s extended hearing range. Then, it explodes in a fiery blast, shattering the windows of every house in Grimmauld Place, one by one – and the dark magic in the release not even leaving the boundaries of Number 12, courtesy of the powerful wards around the Black Family Home.

Harry goes limp in his arms and Sirius supports him better quickly, wiping at the blood on his forehead as he adjusts his weight accordingly. However, Sirius almost drops him when he sees the abrupt change in Harry’s facial features.

 _Shit_ , he thinks, blanching. _I know James and I are- were, cousins of a sort, but…_ Sirius really needs to stop making split-second decisions. _Adopting someone in my own bloodline would make the magic of the vow think I need an heir._

Which, in a way, he does.

“It’s either you or Malfoy, to be fair,” Sirius murmurs in disbelief, before the door to Number 12 slams open to reveal his mother, Kreacher at her feet. They lock eyes, grey meeting grey and there’s a moment where Sirius sees happiness there in her eyes, _hope._

“Regulus?”

Sirius clenches his jaw. “No, Lady Black.”

Immediately, Walburga blinks and that hope is banished, though strangely the happiness remains. She looks him over, expression twisting into one of disgust – and despite the wrinkles and age, all the years that have passed for him, if not her, Sirius still flinches.

“You were in Azkaban. Broke out, did you?”

“I was always full of surprises,” Sirius mutters in a bitter voice. “I need to hide my son from Dumbledore.”

“Mmmm…” Walburga nods, moving out of the way. Sirius walks up the steps cautiously, flinching again when her wand trails delicately over his arm. “You surprised me, playing the long game. I’m proud of you.”

Grimacing, Sirius goes further into Grimmauld, inwardly screaming as he sees more than just the beginning of what would become the decrepit Number 12 of the future.

“Kreacher, clean this damn place up,” he snaps at the house-elf, who eyes Harry carefully before looking to Walburga, who shuts the door, the lock clicking ominously.

“Do as he says. Now he has returned to us, he may do his duties as Lord Black, despite this unjust imprisonment. He served the Dark Lord, he is a true Black…”

 _Right,_ Sirius swallows, avoiding looking at his mother as he shifts Harry on his hip. _If she fixes the Tapestry, will Harry show up?_

“Take my grandson to the sitting room,” Walburga instructs, “the dark magic around him isn’t settling right.”

“It shouldn’t,” Sirius replies, reluctant but knowing that his mother might be one of the only people who’d know what that _thing_ from his scar was. “I banished something that- that took _root_ in him. It was alive.”

“Oh?”

Sirius hurries into the living room, not liking the curious sound of his mother’s rasping voice. He sit on a sofa, sitting the unconscious Harry on his lap, bringing up his wand to run basic diagnostics.

“Lay him on the couch,” his mother instructs, but Sirius ignores her. “Did you not hear me, boy?”

“Despite my obvious allegiances, my grievances with you were just, mother,” Sirius snarls, feeling a sharp anger rise in his chest, pounding the inside of his ribcage like a fist. “I despise you and I came for the safety of this _house_ , not your protection or _help_.”

He expects a curse to wrack his body, to make him curl up and wish he was dead, but it doesn’t come. Instead, his mother sets herself heavily in her chair and it’s strange, but she looks older than her portrait did – more lined and more grey, heavy bags under her eyes.

“You’re holding the heir to House Black. Do you expect me to hurt you?” she questions.

_I see._

Sirius looks away from her, struggling to remember basic healing spells as he conjures a soft cloth to wipe at the blood on Harry’s forehead.

“Dumbledore hid him with muggles,” he eventually admits, not looking at her. “Azkaban- it’s fucked with my head.”

“Language…”

“I’ll speak however the fuck I like, especially now.” Sirius replies, before continuing. “I feel like I’ve lived twelve years in Azkaban, not three.”

“Some don’t survive a month,” Walburga mutters, leaning back comfortably in her chair as she watches them, twirling her wand with a precision Sirius doesn’t like thinking about. “My strong, brave son. The Dark Lord won’t be pleased with you once he returns, but that mudblood must have delved into some powerfully dark magic to save her son.”

“She sacrificed herself for him,” Sirius says, staring at Harry, wishing he’d just wake up. _Wake up!_ “So, the darkest.”

“Ritual magic. I’m surprised her life was worth that of both her son and the Dark Lord…it’s suspicious,” Walburga narrows her eyes and Sirius has the sudden urge to stay away from her, knowing that tone of voice. _Paranoia, wariness…_ “The greatest advocates are the greatest hypocrites. Did you mean to lead him to his death? Did you know something?”

Sirius thinks of the prophecy, of the lines Lily and James shared with him.

“Equals. The Dark Lord was a half-blood.”

Walburga hisses, rearing up in her chair. “I knew it! Liar! I knew Regulus would never have betrayed him because of cowardice! The Dark Lord’s cause was great, but he was the anathema of his own ambition!”


	2. #tadpole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a good-intentioned start to strange, culture-induced gender confusion that...well, I don't know. Maybe not the best of ways to start.

It starts because of a tease.

(Or maybe it started because Hermione Granger was Sorted into Ravenclaw.)

Nearing the end of their first week, Draco Malfoy saunters up to him in the middle of a semi-abandoned corridor. Harry, hanging out with Neville on a bench, listening to him as he describes his seemingly never-ending greenhouse, grimaces at the sight of him, Crabbe and Goyle large and round behind him. _They aren’t as big as Dudley_ , he thinks, muscles tensing, ready to run. _That means they’re faster._ Neville squeezes his arms around himself as Malfoy stops in front of them, a motion Harry has already learned shows how uncomfortable his friend is.

“Potter, Longbottom. Hanging out like _besties_ , are we?” He says _besties_ like it’s a funny word, but there’s something else there in his voice – an insinuation Harry doesn’t understand. Neville, however, flushes red and replies with a whispered shout.

“We’re just friends!”

Malfoy’s lip curls into a smirk and Crabbe and Goyle snigger. “Right, _just friends_. You’re such a girl, Longbottom.”

“I’m a _boy_ ,” Neville cries, face screwing up. Harry glares at Malfoy as the blonde turns on him, instead.

“Are you the girl, then, Potter?” he says in a goading voice and Harry doesn’t quite understand this conversation, how it started or how it’s evolved since. “If you aren’t _besties_ that must mean one of you is a girl.”

“Why?” Harry questions, brow furrowing even as Neville mumbles Ron’s name. Malfoy glances at the pudgy boy at that, frowning.

“Weasley? You’d really sacrifice your reputation by being in a friendship with a _Weasley?_ ” He shakes his head and Harry feels anger rise in him at how he’s talking about his friend, but before he can snap back at him, Malfoy continues, answering his own question. “No, you wouldn’t. If Lady Augusta found out, she’d disown you, no matter what side of the war your families were on. So you’re hanging out with Potter, unchaperoned and you claim to be a _boy_.” More sniggers come from Crabbe and Goyle as Malfoy smirks and _really_ , Harry thinks, _what’s going on?_

The three Slytherin’s wander off, obviously heading somewhere – Harry and Neville were just a pit-stop.

“Neville,” Harry starts, “what was that all about?”

Neville gives him a side-long glance, going white as a sheet before scurrying to his feet, running off. Alarmed, Harry stands up, watching Neville hurl around a corner so fast that his bag slams into the stone wall, a familiar smashing sound echoing down the corridor. An unfamiliar voice calls out to him.

“Potter? Are you really a girl?”

Harry twists, looking to the speaker – a Ravenclaw girl with dark green hair, pulled back into a high ponytail. The colour distracts him from the question for a moment, as he recalls Uncle Vernon’s angry mutters about _punks_ and _bloody delinquents, throwing rubbish into Dudders’ playground_.

“You said he wasn’t your bestie,” she verbally prods, her two friends and another trio down the hallway glancing over to watch the conversation.

“He’s my friend,” Harry frowns.

“But you didn’t have a chaperone,” says one of the friends sharply, as if it offends them, eyeing him with a narrowed gaze.

Harry doesn’t know what a chaperone is, but looking around and finding no less and no more than six people staring at him blatantly, he makes a break for it, following Neville’s route. He has no destination in mind, the encounter replaying in his mind. _Why did they keep asking if I was a girl? Do I **look** like a girl?_

Pausing at a corner, he pats his face, feeling the new, unfamiliar softness of skin there, so used to being dry, lacking moisture. His jaw is still prominent and his nose hard and pointy, bumpy beneath the bridge of his glasses from past breaks – Dudley had a fondness for punching him right there, purposefully trying to damage his glasses, at least until Aunt Petunia told him off because of how the temporary fixes kept falling apart and the school rang.

“I sort of look like Aunt Petunia,” Harry mumbles, as he thinks of her face. Both of them have bony faces and bony wrists – she always ate more than he did, but he’d seen her sticking her fingers down her own throat before to throw up her last meal. He’d asked Ms Murray why someone would make themselves throw up the next week and his teacher had been worried, but answered his question – _to lose weight_. “I need to eat more,” he says to himself, distinctively uncomfortable with the idea.

His hands move to his chest, resting on top of the warm, grey, Gryffindor-colours-lined wool vest over his uniform shirt. Underneath it, he can feel his own ribs. He shivers at the idea of not being able to feel them, to look- to look at himself and see _Vernon_ or worse, _Dudley_ , with bundles of saggy flesh covering his bones.

Gagging slightly at the image of himself like that, Harry shakes his head, trying to erase the picture from his mind. _I don’t care if I look like Aunt Petunia. I’m not going to eat any more than I already am just because I look like a girl._ He moves along, deciding to head back to Gryffindor Tower.

The next few days are weird, however. People whisper and Ron draws away for some reason, hanging out with Dean and Seamus. It makes Harry feel hurt – Ron’s supposed to be his best friend. Neville doesn’t hang out with him anymore either and Harry doesn’t understand why he runs away when Harry goes to sit with him in the Great Hall or the Common Room. He can’t help but think it’s all connected – Ron and Neville both drawing away. It makes him angry.

In his spare time, instead of hounding his former friends, Harry walks around school. At first he just follows the routes to his classes, getting used to the castle more. Then, he mixes it up, opening doors and inspecting rooms. It’s funny sometimes, because he finds the strangest types of rooms. Most of them are dusty and full of old furniture, but some of them are magnificent – like the small broom-cupboard full of tall, metal staves with crystal balls on top that let off painful static when he tries to pick them up and this one huge hall that looks like it was set up for practicing quidditch in.

“It’s really cool,” he tells Alicia about the indoor pitch, when he sees her with Angelina and Katie in the Common Room. Intrigued, she gathers the rest of the team and Harry leads them to the room. Oliver is ecstatic and orders them to turn up here every Sunday night at seven, after dinner.

“We’ll beat Slytherin this year, I just _know_ it – and it’ll all be because of you, Potter,” Oliver grins, wrapping his arm around him and ruffling his hair. Harry grins into his hold, even as Angelina moans about having to do more practice.

Other rooms he finds, Harry keeps to himself. He finds rooms where gravity doesn’t work, where no sound travels, where a swamp makes its home and even one room that’s a forest. Above, on the ceiling, the night sky twinkles down at him and when it rains, just like in the Great Hall, droplets fall down and disappear before their reach his head, never touching the ground.

But in the evenings, Harry isn’t exploring or having fun in Hogwarts’ many magical places – he’s doing his homework in his room, unable to sit with his fellow first-years in the Common Room because they all edge away from him. Ron, Dean and Seamus are happy in their little trio, Neville seems to prefer being on his lonesome – terrified to sit with Harry – and the girls…well, they giggle at him and Lavender asked why he hadn’t moved into the girls’ dorm a fortnight before Halloween.

More and more people call Harry a girl. It seems that one more person every day refers to Harry within his hearing by female pronouns. It doesn’t make sense to Harry. _I’m a boy? I have a penis and my name is Harry James. That’s a boy’s name, not a girl’s name._ He’s even called the _Boy-_ Who-Lived sometimes and Harry didn’t even come up with that one.

“At least the teachers don’t call me a girl,” he mutters to himself on Halloween, when he’s treading water in the pool he’d found instead of attending the Feast. If the teachers started to call him a girl, Harry doesn’t know what he’d do. “Probably die of embarrassment.”

Looking out onto the water, Harry forces himself to float in the water, trying to remember how they taught everyone to swim in St Grogory’s. He used to love swimming, except when it came to playtime at the end, when Dudley would deliberately try drowning him. When lessons were on, the swimming instructors had split Harry and Dudley up, because Dudley was rubbish at swimming and unlike the teachers at school, the swimming instructors didn’t pay attention to the warnings given to them about Harry being a ‘delinquent’ – especially seeing as Dudley and his friends were the ones who eventually got banned from attending swimming for holding people’s heads underwater.

The pool room is properly magic, Harry decides when it doesn’t let him swim past the middle of the pool. When he tries swimming straight on, he finds himself swimming sideways into the side of the pool – and in the glass cupboard in the wall, goggles that let him see straight appeared. They were even better than his glasses!

The cupboard itself is full of cool things. When Harry finishes swimming about, he pulls himself up out of the pool to go look. Last week, there were blue weights in the shape of crabs that scuttled along on the floor of the pool that he could practice diving with. Looking in the cupboard, Harry stares at the shark-fin, a crisp piece of parchment magically illustrating with moving pictures how to put the fin on, to activate an illusion when swimming to make the wearer seem like an _actual_ shark.

Harry reaches for the fin, ready to put it on when the doors to the pool room slam open, causing him to jump and twist – subsequently, causing him to slip and fall. Blinking at the sight of Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape, wands in hand, Harry swallows nervously.

“…Mr Potter, oh,” Professor McGonagall lets out a relieved breath. “When the prefects did a headcount to see if all first-years were in the Common Room and found you weren’t _there_ – what were you doing, young man? There is a _troll_ loose in the castle!”

“A troll?” Harry’s eyes widen, before he lets out a short, pained yell as the goggles are ripped off his head, Professor Snape banishing them into the cupboard again. “Ow!”

“Answer the question, Mr Potter. Why are you here and not in the Common Room? Did you think it would be _funny_ to slip out to go have a little _swim?_ ”

“I’ve been here for ages,” Harry grumbles, rubbing his head where his hair got pulled from the banished goggles. “I didn’t even go to the Feast.”

“And why not?” Professor McGonagall questions, sounding confused. Harry hesitates to answer. _I don’t have anyone to sit with. I don’t want to eat, so I look more like a girl or worse, the Dursley’s._ But then, Professor McGonagall makes a noise of understanding. “Halloween…oh, Mr Potter.” Harry can’t see her properly, his eyesight shot without his glasses or the goggles, but he can still hear and the grief in her voice is like a shot to the heart.

_Oh._

_My parents died on Halloween._

“I…” he starts, voice cracking. “I like swimming. It’s…fun.”

“Well, you need to get back to your Common Room, Mr Potter. The troll is still loose.” Professor McGonagall moves her hand – her wand – and Harry feels himself, his swim-trunks and his swim-shirt dry. Getting up off the floor, he hesitantly reaches for the wall, using it as a guide so he doesn’t fall back into the pool as he makes his way to the changing cubicles.

“What are you doing, Mr Potter?” Professor Snape questions, as if Harry’s stupid.

“I can’t see, sir,” he admits under his breath, trying to remember which cubicle has his robes and wand. Unfortunately, his bad luck causes him to slip again, but this time Professor McGonagall levitates him into the air before he hits the ground. Wriggling a little, Harry embarrassedly crosses his arms. “My stuff is in one of the-” he gestures, wanting to be let down so he can collect his things.

“Mr Potter, from the humidity, I can almost guarantee your glasses will be useless in here,” Professor McGonagall says apologetically. “Severus?”

Harry watches as Professor Snape moves over to the cubicles, opening them all with a flick of his wand, going inside the one with his belongings. The next thing Harry knows, his swimmers have been swapped with his uniform, glasses fogged up on his face. As he gets used to the sensation of clothes and shoes again, Professor McGonagall lets him down onto the ground again, Professor Snape tapping his glasses. Abruptly, the fog clears and they click back to optimum repair – Harry deciding without a doubt that his swimming goggles are of better prescription than his own glasses.

“Thank-you, sir.”

“Think nothing of it, Potter,” Professor Snape rolls his eyes, before stalking out of the room. “Let us return you to Gryffindor Tower, before the troll decides to vacate the dungeons.”

They begin their way back to Gryffindor Tower in silence, but quickly, Harry gets a feeling there’s something wrong as the hair on the back of his neck pricks up. Looking back and forth, up and down the corridor, Harry begins to feel his nerves rise.

“Professor-” he starts.

“Silence, Potter,” Professor Snape interrupts.

“But Professor-” he tries again, before the most horrid smell – like toilets and Dudley’s room – gets up his nose. Bringing his hand up, Harry looks to Professor Snape, who whips his hand out, holding it against Harry’s chest to stop him in his path.

“Get up against the wall, _quietly._ ” They move together – all three of them – edging across the corridor to press against the wall as the troll comes lumbering past. Professor McGonagall breathes in sharply and Professor Snape hisses as lightning flashes, illuminating the broken form of Professor Quirrell hanging limp from the troll’s arm. Harry’s eyes widen as he spies Professor Quirrell’s head – free of its turban and possessing an awful, red-weeping, _second_ _face_ on the back of it.

The troll continues down the corridor.

“Professor McGonagall, respectfully, as your younger and both more physically and magically agile co-worker, it would benefit us to leave _me_ to deal with the troll while you escape with Mr Potter,” Professor Snape says, causing Harry to look up at his Potions professor in slight awe.

“Severus, no-” Professor McGonagall starts, before a high-pitched scream rings out throughout the corridors. Immediately, the three of them take flight. To Harry’s surprise, he can barely keep up with Professor Snape, his head of house being left behind as they rush around the corner to find the troll swinging its club and Professor Quirrell’s body into a wall, a small body flying towards them.

“Miss Davis-” Professor Snape starts, before she collides with him. “What are you doing here, foolish girl?” Professor Snape looks to them both, pushing them roughly to where their Transfiguration professor appears. “ _Run!_ Minerva, take them!”

“Stay alive, Severus!” Professor McGonagall shouts, before taking Harry and Davis by the shoulders. “Come now, run as fast as you can.”

Harry runs, somehow ending up with Davis’ hand in his. They run down the corridor, as fast as they can and when Harry looks back to see Professor Snape be bowled down the corridor, flying to collide with Professor McGonagall’s body, he realises with a start that he knows where they are – and how they can get away.

Eyes searching the portraits, empty of their occupants, Harry finds the one he’s looking for.

“Here! Get inside,” he tells the girl, clicking open the portrait and opening it up for her. “There’s a slide – it drops you on the third floor of the dungeons, near the kitchens.”

The girl glances back at the mess of teachers before ducking inside. Harry watches the green trim of her robes disappear down the hole as she yelps, activating the pressure-pad. Then, he shuts the portrait, the floor beneath him shuddering. Looking down the corridor, Harry sees the troll charging, letting out a loud roar. The professors are still getting up off the ground, Professor McGonagall unable to stay steady with how the floor is shaking.

Patting his pockets, Harry finds his wand, lifting it and aiming squarely at the troll – but thinking about its club.

“Wingardium leviosa!” he shouts, feeling a _wrench_ in his arm as the club flies up into the air, out of the troll’s hand. The beast immediately becomes confused, slowing and then tripping over its own feet, head banging against the ground. A weighty _thud_ , like an earthquake, reverberates through the corridor – but in no way is it so bad as when it had been rampaging.

Barely two metres from the troll’s body, the professors stand shakily, looking over at him with barely-concealed looks of surprise.

“…you’re welcome?” Harry swallows, deciding it had been a bad idea to speak as Professor Snape’s expression twists into one of anger.

“Why didn’t you leave with Miss Davis?”

“I- I could help.”

“You could have been _killed_ , boy!” Professor Snape yells, looking like he wants to storm over and strangle Harry, but unable to because of how he supports Professor McGonagall, still shaken. “When an adult tells you to do something, you need to actually do what they say, Potter!”

Harry lets some of his anger out at his words, glaring. “I saved your life!”

Professor Snape opens his mouth to speak again, only to be interrupted by an old, unfamiliar voice. “Enough, Severus.” Harry sees an old man appear beyond the professors and the troll, turning the corridor corner with what looks to be half the staff of Hogwarts. He peers balefully at Professor Snape, looking fleetingly at Harry before setting his eyes on the downed troll – and Professor Quirrell’s body in its grasp. “Ahh, Quirinus. Poppy, my dear-”

Harry watches as Madam Pomfrey rushes forwards, kneeling by the Defence teacher’s body, pressing her wand to his neck and shaking her head almost immediately, looking back to the old man

“Headmaster,” Professor Snape starts lowly, “how did the troll manage to traverse three flights in twenty minutes? Quirrell said it was in the dungeons.”

“Obviously, Quirinus was mistaken, by the time it mattered,” the old man – the Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore – shuts his eyes, taking out his wand and conjuring a white sheet over the mans body. Harry startles at the realisation that his teacher is really…dead. _He’s dead. The troll killed him._ His stomach swirls and for a moment, Harry feels like he’s about to be sick, before he controls the impulse and instead wonders why Professor Quirrell had a second face on the back of his head.

“Harry,” Professor Dumbledore attracts his attention. Harry looks to him, emerald green eyes meeting bright, luminescent blue. “Are you unharmed?”

“He’s in perfect condition, Headmaster,” Professor Snape replies, before Harry nods, finally lowering his wand – and the troll’s club, which drops down onto the troll’s feet, narrowly avoiding Madam Pomfrey.

“Sorry,” he says to the matron, who gives him a slight glare as she stands up again, conjuring a stretcher and levitating Professor Quirrell’s covered body onto it. “Is- is the troll dead, too?”

“Simply unconscious,” Professor Dumbledore states calmly, still watching Harry, unblinking. “Would you like to go to the Infirmary for a calming draught, Harry? Or will your dorm suffice?”

“I…” Harry’s eyes slip to the stretcher, slowly floating up to waist-height – one of Professor Quirrell’s mangled arms slipping out from under the sheet. Immediately, his stomach turns upon seeing bare bone, only now realising how much blood tracks the path the troll took – how much is under his feet, staining the white stone floor. Harry throws up and the next thing he knows is that his head is aching and the unfamiliar ceiling is flickering yellow from candlelight.

“Finally awake. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything now, Mr Potter,” Madam Pomfrey comes over, holding out a vial of potion to his lips. “Here. For your head. It’ll numb the pain and let you sleep.” She pours the vial and Harry takes it, swallowing and almost immediately feeling the effects, the ache in his head disappearing.

Then, he feels an irresistible pull to sleep and follows it, gladly – only to be haunted by the nightmare of Professor Quirrell’s dead body, held in the long arm of a troll.


	3. #magic is a force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a much better trans piece + Star Wars

On the train to Hogwarts, Lizzie finds a compartment – she finds a compartment that she gets kicked out of because _we’re seventh years, firstie and you don’t get one to yourself, now get._ Lizzie tries to search out another compartment, but by now – eleven oh five, the train already out of the station and no-one waving anymore – everyone is settled somewhere.

Actually, there are a few stragglers, but they’re older or late meeting with their friends. There’s one other first year searching for some place to sit.

“Hey,” he greets glumly, shaggy copper fringe hanging over his eyes. Lizzie waves shyly, Hedwig on her shoulder hooting softly. “You’ve got your own owl?” he questions, sounding jealous as he huffs, pushing past her. Lizzie stumbles slightly, hurrying to save her trunk from being pushed over by the unhappy boy.

Lizzie grew up in Little Whinging, where Dudley and his friends would play _Lizzie Hunting_ and would rip her dresses just to snicker while Aunt Petunia shouted at her. She’s used to not having friends and for other children treating her horribly.

 _I thought I could start new here,_ she thinks on the Hogwarts Express. _Apparently not._

* * *

After primary school, usually, rather than walk home and risk the bullying attitude of her cousin, Lizzie would escape to the library. However, no matter how much she read about camping, she still couldn’t create a small fire for herself in the garden shed when Uncle Vernon locked her in on purpose overnight.

With magic, it’s the same. Lizzie gets her classwork done, hiding from her classmates who wonder where _Harry Potter_ is and studies all sorts of magic. Transfiguration is the type she likes best, she thinks, but transfiguration is _hard_.

Professor McGonagall refuses to teach Lizzie how to transfigure herself. _You are a beginner, Miss Evans. When you’re older, perhaps._ When she asks _her_ to do it, instead, Professor McGonagall shakes her head and offers her a biscuit, picking out a book for her to read from her personal bookcase on the Ministry of Magic’s regulations on transfiguration magic. Later, she sends her another in the post, wrapped in brown paper with a note saying, _open in private._

Lizzie is eleven. It’s going to be another _six years_ before she’s old enough for Professor McGonagall to legally transfigure her into a _proper_ girl from a boy. She has to stop growing first _and_ to become a proper girl, Lizzie would have to take potions first to make the transfigurations permanent, potions she can’t brew or consume until she’s an adult.

Madam Pomfrey only confirms what the second book says, but offers to teach her some small magic tricks that she wouldn’t have grown up with in the muggle world, offers to _support_ her.

Other books she finds that don’t quite make sense talk about _support bases_ , made of people who she trusts. Lizzie thinks that for however horrible her relative are, how she lives in a cupboard instead of a bedroom and how she spent countless nights curled up in the garden shed.

Lizzie thinks of her reserved, unkind aunt and uncle and Dudley’s aunt Marge, who used to be called Roger and wonders whether _support_ _base_ applies to them, too. Lizzie doesn’t love them, but they gave her dresses; Lizzie doesn’t trust them, but they let her change her name from Harry Potter to Elizabeth Evans.

 _The Dursley’s aren’t a support base,_ she thinks, reading the words _bear all or part of the weight of; hold up_ in a dictionary. _I dangle by a thread with the Dursley’s. I’m a puppet spelled alive, knowing they can tangle me up and break me whenever they like._

* * *

Magical theory doesn’t make sense to her, all together. They study it in each class – in charms, transfiguration, potions, defence and even herbology. Lizzie understands it all separately, but she just can’t see the connections.

Lizzie goes to Professor McGonagall, her first port of call, but her head of house isn’t the person to go to, apparently. _Professor Flitwick will be able to explain more, in depth – though perhaps one of your elder housemates would be able to help you. A prefect, maybe._

Professor Flitwick gives a long, understandable speech on magical charm theory. When Lizzie asks how that connects to something or other in transfiguration, how witches and wizards create magic, how they control it and use wands like they do, he hesitates.

_I’m afraid I haven’t studied this type of magical theory in some time, Miss Evans._

Lizzie knows then that her available teachers – that she likes, that have posted office-hours, that don’t hate her – can’t help her. She turns to the library for help and all she gets for her efforts is intelligible gibberish from a NEWT-level analysis comparing the hover charm to a propeller-feet transfiguration.

Wandering the castle is a habit she takes up. Hogwarts is a maze of the weird and wonderful. On the first floor there’s a room that has trees and stars inside; on the fifth floor there’s a broom closet with a faded mural of two witches transforming into wolves painted across the wall; behind a portrait of a deaf wizard in dungarees, shelves go from floor to ceiling, full of fluorescent yellow flowers that blow bubbles full of gas that makes Lizzie cough.

 _I need a teacher who can show me my place in this,_ she thinks one day that she wanders, pausing at a junction of corridors to imitate a moving tapestry of a man attempting to teach strange, giant creatures ballet. _I need a teacher to show me what magic is. I need a teacher._

A strange cricketing sound comes from behind her. Lizzie twirls around, bag swinging slightly. Her eyes widen as she sees a small door, newly-appeared and half-open. Creeping forwards, wand at the ready – not that she knows many spells, but Lizzie does know the theory for a stunning spell –

“ _Oh, what now is this?_ ” a strange voice comes from the door, before a small green being pops their head through. Lizzie stares at them and they stare at her. _It’s old, I think,_ Lizzie notes the white hair coming out of their long, pointed ears, sticking out from the side of their green, domed head.

“…hello?” she greets, before the being looks her up and down in a critical manner.

“Young, are you. Strong with the Force.”

“The Force?” Lizzie questions, before hazarding a guess at what they might mean. “You mean magic?”

“Magic, the Force, things that be one and the same,” the being says, before disappearing back through the door.

Lizzie lurches. “Wait!” she shouts, before following the being through the magic door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ extended 'magic is a force' ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13073250)


	4. #a thread of gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein Sirius raises a Harry who isn't a Potter + Harry goes on his way to a town where his true mother reigns, unknowingly. / Once Upon a Time crossover.

Magic is something that comes to him strangely, even for a powerful young wizard. Sirius hitches Harry up onto his hip and tries to ignore how his godson, sleepy-eyed, makes his hanging stars-and-snitches mobile twirl and play music. Harry is dark-skinned like James, with Lily’s large, emerald eyes and Sirius pretends that he can’t see that image flickering when Harry has a tantrum, the lights flickering and glass shattering, doors slamming open and shut, his godson screaming there with a Spanish tan and dark brown eyes that aren’t hazel or even _greenish_.

“Harry James Potter,” Sirius whispers to himself, eyes squeezed shut as he remembers Jamie’s body just lying there at the bottom of the stairs, blood seeping from a cut on his chest and his eyes glassy. “Harry. James. Potter.”

Harry grows up running across grassy forestland, hands mucky and his hair wilder than the wilderness around him. Sirius patrols the forest as Padfoot, Harry smiling widely as he sees him through his little spyglass from his treehouse high in the sky. Sirius learns and then later, teaches Harry how to garden, how to grow vegetables and keep their greenhouse in tip-top shape.

In snowy winters, when they hide inside their log cabin, they dance and scream as Sirius’ record player plays the classics – Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. Harry knows all the words to _Go Your Own Way_ before he turns five and makes Sirius sing his horrible acoustic rendition of _Rock ‘n Roll Train_ before he goes to bed.

When Harry loses his temper at age eight, golden fire spewing from his hands and making their home catch alight, the glamour cracks, falling apart in front of his eyes. Sirius looks at his godson, not recognising the person in front of him – but of course, that’s not truly the important part of that moment. The cabin burning, Harry terrified of himself, Sirius isn’t surprised that Aurors show up. Last time he checked, they had wards to tell them when magical fire was causing disruptions to muggle sites and Sirius and Harry sort of lived in a National Park.

Facing the dementors, Sirius’ last despair is that he never made sure Harry had an extra identity for whoever was hiding under his skin.

* * *

A ring of a doorbell – high and louder than expected.

“Hello? What can I do for you, today?” the man behind the counter looks up from his book, shutting it slowly, leaning on a cane. “Are you new in town?”

“Yes,” Harry replies, slightly awkwardly, wanting to fiddle with his wand but keeping it in his holster. He sees the man look him over, taking in the dark red of the Auror ceremonial robes, the golden ties and medals – the giant rip and the great, almighty bloodstain around it. His leg twinges in memory, but nothing more. “I’m lost, actually. I was sort of…pulled through some kind of portal and the people who saw said I should either go to the police station, the town hall or this shop. It sounds crazy, I know, but-”

“No, no,” the man walks around the counter, meeting Harry halfway. “It happens surprisingly often here, in this town. It has a tendency to attract the magical and the medieval, as some might put it.”

“Oh, uh…right,” Harry raises his hand, running it through dark brown curls, loosening it from its ribbon. “Right. I’ve tried getting home using apparation, but it didn’t work and neither did my emergency portkey. I’m sort of in a hurry to get back – the Minister was being attacked.”

“The Minister of where, may I ask?”

“The British Minister of Magic,” Harry elaborates.

“Really?” The man raises an eyebrow. “I’m afraid to say that this realm is a Land Without Magic, disregarding this fair town you’ve found yourself in. The portal you fell through would have been one that let you traverse through the walls.”

Harry stares, not quite understanding. “What? Realms?”

The man sighs, “What’s your name, lad?”

“Auror Commander Potter, though some would like to argue against that.”

“How so?”

Harry swallows, remembering when his name had been called during his Hogwarts Sorting ceremony. “They were led to believe Harry Potter was a spitting image of his father, with his mothers eyes. I disappointed them by looking like this. Who are you, then? Gold, like the shop?”

The man gives a slight smile, “One of many. Rumplestiltskin is my given name.”

“Hard life, being named after a fairy-tale character,” Harry grimaces, gaining a strange laugh from him.

“I find myself feeling benevolent, Auror Commander. It would do you well to believe me when I say that _I_ am Rumplestiltskin. If you meet the Mayor, you will be facing the Evil Queen and if you go to Granny’s Diner, you will find yourself being served by the one and only Red Riding Hood, though I am led to believe she prefers the name Ruby Lucas, nowadays.”

Harry’s eyes widen, “Seriously?”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes glitter in the dark of the store as he replies. “Deadly.”


	5. #black as the pit from pole to pole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> theia riddle and the diary horcrux - or, why you shouldn't split your soul and put what will be half in a useable object.

Within the book that describes the process to creating horcruxes, there is such a verse that warns the dark magic-user of the dangers that come with making your horcrux with an item that has the ability to be used. Such an item – a pen, a set of spectacles, _a diary_ – should not be the receptacle, as a horcrux is a half of your soul and as such, has the ability to become sentient should it tie itself to a magic-user and become wholly independent of its other half.

Theia Merope Riddle is sixteen when she reads the warning and makes a horcrux out of her diary anyway.

Years later the horcrux finds itself in the hands of Ginevra Molly Weasley. It reaches out and sucks out the life of her, remembering what it- _she_ , read, all those years ago in a library. She had been idiotic when she was whole and Theia does not regret trying to make a place for herself in the world, especially after she figures out that her physical self got herself killed over a baby, of all things and had the gall to disguise herself as a _male_.

“Lord Voldemort, indeed,” Theia grimaces at the small form of Ginny Weasley on the ground, crouching primly by the dying redhead. “That name is truly an embarrassment. I bet my older self has lost her mind. Even knowing what I am, I still feel like a person. Half a person. I’m drawing magic from you, little Ginny and you wouldn’t know how frustrating that is. Magic! I always knew I was special…but in any case, yes, my older self must have lost her mind. The books warned us of ill effects. Mental instability was one. Oh, how naïve we were.”

On the ground, Ginny does not stir. Theia stands, glancing at her transparent hand. “Living in that diary was torture. I don’t know how the rest of my soul can take it. I have no doubt my other self has split herself. Once I gather my body from you…” she feels it then, as she regrets things that in all rights, _she_ has not done. It’s a sharp pain and one that causes Theia to flinch.

_Only regret can return my soul to me._

Theia does regret, but that is the catch. Her other self does not regret and she is the main soul-piece. _But I am the largest. So should the others not come to me?_ Theia thinks on this in silence for a while before a rumble secures her attention. Looking to the entrance, Theia backs away into the shadow, wanting to grab her diary and keep it safe, for it is precious and-

… _and that is my dear, young Harry Potter, coming to the rescue_. Theia watches him like a hawk. He isn’t Dumbledore or even a fully-grown wizard yet. Theia wonders if she should confront him, but no doubt he is still angry for the Hagrid incident. His hair is streaked with grey, his glasses dusty and his Hogwarts robes covered in slime and dirt from his traipsing through the sewers and passageways.

His dark skin that had made Theia grimace when watching him in her memory only serves to make her curious now, for the Weasley’s certainly did not have the magic of Parsletongue in their blood – so somehow, despite his lineage, he must be of Salazar, somehow. It’s the only way to get into the Chamber.

His wand is thrown to the side as he comes to Ginny’s side, rolling to Theia’s feet, touching her toes. Theia picks it up, pride rising up within her. _I will be truly living, soon_. Harry’s wand is warm in her hand, welcoming and as powerful as her own yew and phoenix-tail and it makes her feel secure – the dull, mildew stench of the Chamber that filters through her nose only causing her happiness.

Theia looks to the owner of the wand she currently possesses and for a moment, contemplates. She is all for a semi-dramatic entrance…but her older self has disappointed her. Why be dramatic? She has no fearsome reputation in this boy’s mind, the only bias that of how she got Rubeus expelled. Then, as if by the will of all the gods that Theia does not care for, it comes to her and Theia can’t control her sudden smirk as she twirls Harry’s wand again, pointing it at him.

_Obliviate!_

* * *

Harry isn’t allowed to attend Ginny’s funeral. Vernon scoffs and says, “You want that permission slip signed to visit that shoddy little _village_ of yours, this year, then you’ll stay home and do as we tell you.”

He causes an electricity surge, later in the evening, shorting out all of number four and then three of their neighbours houses too, when he lets his emotions out for the second time over the death of his best friend’s little sister. The first had been in Hogwarts, when Hermione was cured of her petrification, two days after Ginny’s death and Harry’s slaying of the great basilisk of Salazar Slytherin.

Harry doesn’t know what to think about his time in the Chamber. When he thinks about it, every memory is so- so _clear_ and _distinct_ , yet slippery like water. But a lot of his memories are like that, he knows. There are things he recalls the same way from when he was a child, regarding the Dursley’s and his teachers and police-

 _No, I’ve never met any policemen_ , Harry shakes his head of the image of a policeman crouched in the hallway of number four, looking into his cupboard. _It was a dream_. He’d had a lot of dreams like that. He pushes the not-memory away – it was probably something he thought up after they visited the kids in primary school with the firemen.

His time in the Chamber of Secrets was horrifying. He’d found Ginny, life slipping away from her and then- and then Voldemort had walked towards him, circling him with _his wand, Harry’s wand_ , tip a constant dim of orange. Voldemort had been younger, whole and Harry had been reminded of the witches he’d seen in Diagon Alley and the muggle men from Victorian times, her back straight and her chin lowered as he looked down on Harry haughtily – but made horrifying by the snake nose and red eyes.

_“Ginny Weasley brought this on herself, Harry Potter. Never trust something that can think for itself, I think is an apt phrase here, is it not?”_

Voldemort had called the basilisk and Harry had been joined by Fawkes, the Sorting Hat and the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Voldemort had disappeared, then, seemingly not caring for their little battle. Harry could only hazily recall that observation – it wasn’t _clear_ and _distinct_ like their conversations were. Fawkes healed Harry, after his fight was over and then Harry had stabbed the diary.

He’d heard one high, choked scream from the diary itself before ink stopped spouting like blood from its pages. But it was too late. He was too late. Ginny had died sometime between when the basilisk had arrived and when it had died.

“What are you doing, boy?” Petunia snaps him out of his thoughts, glaring out of the kitchen window. “I want all those weeds gone before lunch! And then have a shower!”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Harry replies, not mentioning how Marge wouldn’t be able to tell whether there were weeds or not. Her skillset was more telling the difference between beef gravy and chicken.

He gets back to his weeding, getting about two thirds of the garden done before he’s interrupted by a shadow. He looks up, squinting in the hot, blistering sunlight that had forced him to take his shirt off earlier, only to see the new girl from the house behind number four – on the parallel road, Sunnock Drive – leaning over the fence, somehow.

“Are you standing on a box or something?” is the first thing to come out of his mouth. The girl’s lip twitches, before she nods. She has dark hair – almost as dark as his – with little waves in it, held back by a grey bandana and brown eyes- grey eyes, no, brown. Harry can’t tell, at this distance, but at least he can see that she looks older than him.

“Or something.”

Harry watches her for a few seconds before pulling at another weed, glancing up a couple of times to where she still watches him.

“Is there…something you wanted?” Harry doesn’t know what she might want with him. He’s perfectly aware of how the very conservative – very white – residents of Little Whinging treat him and frankly, this girl could audition for Snow White and have no trouble passing the physical requirements.

“Maybe. I’m attending Durmstrang, so we won’t be seeing each other at Hogwarts-”

 _Hogwarts?_ Harry’s eyes immediately widen as he blurts out, “You’re a witch?”

She stops, eyeing him for a moment. “Yes. I’m a witch. You’re a wizard, if you didn’t know already.”

“I knew,” Harry flushes a little, chagrined. “Sorry.”

“It’s no trouble…but as I was saying, I’m attending Durmstrang this year, so we won’t be seeing each other at Hogwarts,” the girl says, before brushing a stray strand of shiny dark behind her ear – pierced with not one, but _two_ silver earrings and Harry marvels at the concept. “My name is Athena. Athena Lowe.”

“Are you a muggleborn?” Harry questions. To his surprise and apprehension, Athena looks offended.

“No. No I am not. If you _must_ know, I’m a half-blood but even then it is debatable, as my mother was practically a squib.” Athena looks at him for a long moment, then, before speaking again in a softer voice. “Apologies. It’s a sensitive subject.”

“It’s my fault, I brought it up,” Harry shakes his head, deciding it would be best to change the subject with a sigh. “I’m Harry. Harry Potter.”

“As you probably guessed already, I know,” Athena says rather sympathetically. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

Harry all at once feels like he’s been hit by a truck. He sucks in a breath, putting a hand to his chest as he stares at this girl whose face visibly morphs, emitting worry and suspicion.

“…has no-one ever said that before to you?”

Harry, wordless, shakes his head. _Not even Ron and Hermione have ever-_

Athena glances back into her own garden before disappearing. Harry gets to his feet, a ‘wait’ on his lips, before he stops as she does – what he assumes to be – a running jump up and over the fence. They would have collided, if not for the sudden stop Athena goes through, hovering over Petunia’s marigolds. Harry watches her in awe as she floats down onto the grass, only for his awe to turn to horror as Petunia shrieks from the house.

“Freak!” She shouts, Harry swiftly turning to face her, jolting as Athena takes his hand. Petunia waves her dish-cloth as she shouts out of the window. “Get out of my garden! Out! Get out – _freak!_ ”

Athena sneers, “Stupid muggles.” Harry swallows as she starts to drag him to the side-path, around the house. “Faster, now,” she orders and Harry quickens his pace, belatedly remembering he’d left his shirt in the back yard and becoming embarrassed as she bumps into him, her elbow brushing against his chest while they go around the corner.

“Where are we going?” He questions, spare arm crossing over his chest awkwardly. Athena glances at him, lip twitching a little before she points to the end of the road, where the grass field is, dry and brown but thankfully short-cut. “The park?”

“Thank-you for the suggestion,” Athena replies and Harry has to shake his head again, adjusting his glasses as they slip off his nose. “You should get a new set.”

“Of what?” Harry questions.

“Spectacles. You must get terribly awful headaches from them. They look very old, too – when was the last time your prescription was even checked?”

Feeling slightly overwhelmed and quite nervous, Harry finally takes his hand back, stopping in the street. “That’s none of your business.”

Athena glances back at him and down. _She’s taller than me_ , Harry thinks. There’s a long pause before Athena speaks, very slowly and with something of a frown.

“I’m not very good at this. I’m trying to be your friend.”

“…oh,” Harry frowns too, thinking hard. “I’m- I’m not good at friends either. How are people supposed to make friends?”

“It’s a rather strange ritual, isn’t it?” Athena looks up at the sky briefly, before sighing and looking to her fingers, counting on them. “Introductions. Decision to leave area together. The next thing is ‘hanging’. Spending time together.”

“Uh, okay,” Harry glances down the road back at number four. “Can you wait a moment? I just need to go grab my shirt.”

“I’ll wait here for you,” Athena says, gaze suddenly focussing on him very hard. Harry backs away slowly before turning and beginning to jog back to number four, sneaking back into the garden to get his shirt, high-tailing it out of there as soon as he sees Petunia through the window on the phone, obviously very angry and upset.

“I don’t think I’ll be going to Hogsmeade this year,” he says to Athena once he returns, damp, striped shirt in place. “I think my aunt’s on the phone to my uncle complaining about you.”

“I’m not going to apologise,” Athena says, voice flat. “They raised you. They should be used to magic.”

Harry snorts, beginning the walk to the park. “They’ve been trying to stamp the magic out of me my entire life. You’ve no idea what they’re like.”

“Apologies,” she offers again, silence taking over as they walk down the street to the park. Once they get there, Harry immediately goes to the roundabout, twirling on the squeaky device lightly. Athena joins him after a few moments of stillness, waiting until he had spun past to join him.

“How old are you?” Harry questions.

“Sixteen. How old are you?”

“I’m turning thirteen – you don’t look sixteen.”

Athena grumbles a little, “I’m very aware. I turn seventeen on December thirty-first.”

“I’ll send you a birthday card,” Harry promises without thinking, before Athena stumbles and trips up. Harry looks over in alarm as she hisses in pain, slowing the roundabout to a halt. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Athena replies, grimacing as she stands, brushing off her patterned technicolour trousers. “I may be bruised, but I’m otherwise fine. You caught me by surprise – you’d really send me a birthday card?”

Harry hesitates before slowly nodding. “Yeah. Do- do you not get cards?”

“No. I don’t have people who do such things for me.” There’s another long silence, but in this one, Harry just feels awkward. Spinning around on the roundabout again, Harry wonders if Athena is alone like him.

“Do you have a family?” He decides to ask, scuffing Dudley’s old, faded trainers against the concrete to slow down. The neon blue and green have faded so much they’re a weird shade of white. _I can’t wait to start wearing my uniform again._ At least with his Hogwarts uniform, he had to wear his black leather school shoes and not these broken Velcro monstrosities.

“No,” Athena shakes her head. “Everyone’s dead. I grew up in an orphanage. My foster father is a squib from Hungary. He insists upon me going to Durmstrang.”

“What’s Durmstrang? Is it another school?” It occurs to Harry then that there must be other schools. Not _every_ witch and wizard went to Hogwarts, they couldn’t – could they?

“Durmstrang is the school for those in Eastern Europe, Russia and Northern Asia, if they so choose. Beauxbatons of France takes those from Western Europe, sans Britain. It has Hogwarts, obviously.”

“That’s cool…” Harry wonders what would have happened if Hogwarts didn’t exist. Would he have had to go to this…Beauxbatons? _But I can’t speak French._ Harry frowns. “Do you have to speak a different language in Durmstrang?”

“Everyone is required to speak at least two languages, one of which being Belarusian. The school moves, but rumour has it the ward-stone is anchored somewhere in Belarus.” Athena smiles a little, then. “Though, seeing as the founder was Ukrainian, I find that unlikely.”

“Maybe it’s on the border,” Harry says tentatively, cringing even as Athena seems to think on it.

“Maybe.” She shakes her head, “But yes, in any case, Durmstrang is another school and we all have to speak Belarusian. I can speak it. Do you speak anything other than English?”

“No.” Harry remembers some half-hearted German lessons in primary, but he can’t remember much, if anything. “ _Guten morgen?_ ”

“It’s not morning,” Athena replies, shaking her head again. “Would you like to learn another language, Harry?”

“I don’t know,” Harry shrugs, struggling to think of himself speaking another language. “It’s a bit weird.”

“No it’s not,” Athena grimaces, “I’ll convince you.”

Harry snorts, “I dare you.”

“…fine. Your father’s family have been notably dark skinned since the fourteenth century, when the firstborn Potter heir took a magical heiress from the magical equivalent of the Vijayanagara Empire as his wife. I’ll teach you Indian.”

Harry, baffled by this influx of information, looks at Athena in confusion. “What?” Athena repeats what she just said, sounding far more irritated.

“It is its own kind of tragedy. I may not have been kind to others of your ethnicity as a child, but I can still bemoan loss of culture. Since moving here to this disgusting muggle village, I have taken interest in you, Harry Potter and I find it appalling how you live. Does no-one teach you about Wizarding culture? Your family history?”

“No,” Harry doesn’t know why she’s so riled up, but her words stir something in him that makes him slightly offended. Her words sting. “I don’t even know my parents’ middle names.”

“James Charlus Potter. Lily Anne Evans,” Athena recites, bristling. “I know more about your family than you do. This is completely dreadful. Did you not do any research yourself, when you arrived at Hogwarts? They were students – there are records, pictures even. With your mothers academic record, I would even bet upon Professor Slughorn inviting her to his precious Slug Club.”

“Slug Club?” Harry mutters, before listening carefully as Athena starts to rant, going on and on about how horrible it is that he doesn’t know his family history, wizarding culture and customs – and it’s not until she begins to blame people by name that he realises just exactly how creepy this is.

“-McGonagall can’t even invite you to her office for a meeting and Dumbledore, this is all his fault, placing you here in Little Whinging with those sodden excuses for human beings. ‘Freak’ indeed, why, I should rip her tongue out for such disrespect-”

“Hey,” Harry interrupts, stepping away. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? Stop being angry at people that would treat a magical child in such a terrible way?” Athena glares, eyes clear and filled with a somehow very familiar anger. Harry clenches his fists.

“How do you know so much about me? Why? Are you a stalker or something?”

Athena splutters, “A stalk- a _stalker?_ I have better things to do than- than stalk a twelve year old boy!”

“Well, you’re doing a pretty good job at convincing me you have been,” Harry says, before running off, heading back to number four. His heart hammers the inside of his chest and- and _I’m scared_ , he realises, scared of this girl who knows more about him than even Hermione does. Hermione doesn’t research his family line all the way back to the _fourteenth century._ Athena had said some terrible things, too – like wanting to rip out his aunt’s tongue.

She reminds him of Draco, he realises, with a roll of his stomach. _A blood purist._ But she hadn’t gone on about his mother, or their blood types. Her own mother was practically a squib, he remembers hazily, so she has no room to talk. _She didn’t talk_ , Harry thinks. _She just kept saying that- that it wasn’t right for me to grow up with muggles._ Culture. Wizarding culture. Harry doesn’t know what she means by that.

… _should I? Should I know?_ Harry think of Ron, who doesn’t know who Cinderella is. Are there Wizarding fairytales? Wizarding novels that everyone reads? Like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Frankenstein’?

Coming up to number four though, Harry forgets what he’s thinking about as he sees Vernon getting out of his car, slamming the door.

“ _Boy!_ ”

* * *

“Athena?”

“Yes, Harry?” Theia looks up from her book, tilting her sunglasses down.

Harry’s supposed to be watering her plants. Theia had come to an agreement with Petunia Dursley the day before, keeping him out of sight in return for petty cash. It’s usually beneath Theia to work with muggles, but Harry is a special case.

“Before Marge comes tonight, can I put my things in your house? Hedwig already stays with you-”

“Why don’t you just come over yourself?” Theia interrupts, frowning. “Surely the muggles can see the benefit of having you out of sight.”

“I have to cook and serve dinner. I’m their own personal house-elf,” Harry says, bitterness audible. Theia breathes in deep, shutting her copy of _Animagi: a Comprehensive Guide to Analysing Spirit Forms_. “Thanks, though.”

“It’s no bother. Do you have something more respectable to wear?” She instead questions, knowing Harry’s habits regarding clothes. “Your school shirt and slacks might work.”

Harry grimaces, “I need new ones. They’re all too small now.”

“This Marge woman, if she is as unpleasant as you say, would find fault in anything. At least you wouldn’t be somehow showing up your cousin in front of her.”

Harry seems to consider this, Theia sitting up in her sun chair and straightening her skirt and blouse. “How old do you think I could pass as? Young-wise.”

“Uh…” the younger wizard squints at her behind his new glasses – Theia had insisted on taking him on a trip to Greater Whinging to see the optometrist, if not the oculutarian in St Mungos. He’d opted for circular wire frames, like his old ones and despite her reservations, they did suit him, so Theia had allowed it, on the condition that he buy a new set of trainers too, his cousin’s ones frayed and falling apart – not at all suitable for a growing wizard. “Fourteen? Thirteen, maybe. Why?”

“I’m going to show up tomorrow night, before Marge gets here.”

“You’re suicidal,” Harry says flatly. “You’ll never get passed Petunia.”

“I have blackmail, don’t worry.” Theia stands, Harry shaking his head and getting back to watering her garden as she goes over to her home. Once inside, she checks on the adoption potion brewing on her kitchen hob. Ivan Lowe had voluntarily given over a vial of blood, the manic squib of a wizard – barely able to transfigure a matchstick, let alone anything else – easily believing her story of a resurrection gone wrong and need to go undercover.

Ivan Lowe, is of course dead now. Theia had to tie up the loose ends, after all and no-one could dispute her blood if she showed up on the Lowe family tree as the hermit Ivan’s daughter. Part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Theia is glad to be rid of her Riddle blood this way, replacing Tom Riddle in the only way that truly works.

 _If luck shall have it, I might even inherit some Lowe magic_ , she thinks, stirring it clockwise once as one ‘oh five goes on the clock, covering it and lowering the heat of the hob. In two hours, it would be ready and then she would have to explain her difference in appearance to Harry, somehow – she had planned to complete the potion earlier, but lack of funds had secured her nothing other than a need to go ingredient-hunting, naturally. She still has cuts from that pesky bundle of sungrass flowers.

“Athena?” Harry calls, knocking on her window. Theia cuts to the door briefly, letting him in the auto-locking door, courtesy of a runic ward she’d engraved in the handle, cheating the Statue of Secrecy. “I’ve finished watering the plants…what are you making?”

“I don’t want to look like my father. This’ll…change me,” Theia glances at her so-called nemesis. He looks at the potion in wariness, before turning his confusion on her.

“What will you look like?”

“I don’t know,” Theia breathes in, “Different, hopefully. Not too different, but…different, all the same.” _And hopefully not ghastly._ That was the danger in this kind of potion.

“Everyone says I look like my parents,” Harry says, breaking the silence. “My father with my mums eyes. It kind of gets annoying, after people say it so often, but I never knew what they looked like for a long time. Hagrid gave me an album-”

“ _Hagrid?_ ” Theia swiftly turns, alarmed. “Rubeus Hagrid?”

“Yes,” Harry narrows his eyes, “He’s the keeper of the keys and grounds of Hogwarts. Do you know him?”

Theia swallows, suddenly all the more grateful that she’s going to Durmstrang, come end of the summer. _If I had decided to go to Hogwarts, there would be more than just Dumbledore who might recognise me._

“Rubeus Hagrid, half giant, half wizard. Can’t keep his mouth shut to save a life.”

Harry falters briefly at Theia’s words. “Half giant? How does that even work?”

Theia shakes her head at the thought, “Don’t say that kind of thing. It makes one think up many unpleasant images.” Harry shakes his head too, shivering.

“Can I still get my things?”

“Yes. You can put them in that corner, there,” Theia points to the empty space under the countertop, beside the sink. “If there’s not enough room, place your things behind one of the sofas.”

“Yes, Athena.” Harry disappears out the door again, just in time to miss an owl tapping on the window. Theia lets it in, taking the letter the barn owl offers, humming at the Gringotts seal. Opening it and skimming the contents of the letter, Theia harrumphs.

“By all the Saints in Heaven,” she cusses. _Damn Ministry of Magic!_ The letter speaks of their regrets, for until Ivan Lowe’s Will is decreed legal and approved, the goblins cannot withdraw any sum from his vault, on her behalf or otherwise.


	6. #like witches with charms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein Harry is the son of Loki...kind of, at least + the forbidden forest is forbidden for a reason. / Marvel crossover

The Forbidden Forest was dark and cold. The lantern in Harry’s hand was heavy and didn’t give off any form of heat to help, though the light it gave let Harry peer into the darkness without completely having to resort to moonlight. Beside him, Draco was talking his ear off, obviously trying to keep himself from being scared.

_I’m not scared._

A noise gathers his attention and Harry stops, listening for it.

“What? Why have you stopped?” Draco questions hastily, Harry shushing him, brows furrowing as he moves onwards, listening- _there!_ Harry continues on with purpose, veering slightly to the left as the rattled breathing grows louder. “What’s _that?_ ” Draco hisses. Fang whimpers, trying to back away and Draco snatches the lantern from him.

“Hey!”

“You go first – if it does something to you and I’m back here with the light, then it won’t go out when you drop it!” Draco hisses and Harry grits his teeth, because he can’t argue with his logic. Only briefly hesitating, Harry goes on further, pushing past a particularly large bramble covered in frost before catching sight of the man lying on icy ground. Without thinking, he rushes forwards, dropping down beside them, cold liquid seeping through his robes and trousers.

“Sir? Sir, are you alright?” He obviously isn’t. Harry can hear the liquid in his lungs, bubbling, what looks like blood on his face – but as soon as he speaks, the man snaps to attention, arm reaching out and grasping Harry’s wrist, immediately causing him a pain unlike any he’d had before – freezing yet _burning._ Yelling, Harry hears more than sees Draco rush off, dropping the lantern and making it go out, Fang barking.

“Where am I?” The man hisses, before finally letting go of Harry’s wrist. The eleven-year old falls back, crying and sobbing, cradling his wrist to his chest. “Tell me!”

“Hogwarts!” Harry cries, curling up in a ball around his arm, unable to feel anything below his elbow and knowing it’s _wrong_. “What did- what did you do to me?”

The man doesn’t say anything, just lying on the ground, watching him and Harry can see the moonlight reflecting off his skin – his very blue skin, covered in raised lines. Harry feels the cold more than ever, then, freezing him from the inside out.

“What is your name?”

“I’m not telling you, you- you _hurt_ me,” Harry doesn’t know what to do. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears and dazedly, he questions the man, “Are you the one attacking the unicorns?”

The man, even on the ground, is able to recoil. “Attack unicorns? How dare you! Even in my weakened state, I would _never_ think to harm such a creature of innocence, the Norns burn my string from the eternal tapestry if I ever should!”

“What are the Norns?”

“The Fates, the Moirae, the Three Sisters – they handle the billion, billion life threads of the universes. What do they teach young mortals these days?”

“I only found out about magic last year,” Harry says weakly, feeling tired and so very, very cold. “Who are you?”

“…I am Loki. Who are you?”

“Harry. Just…Harry. I’m eleven.”

“My apologies, young warlock,” Loki says quietly, before letting out a groan, sitting up. Harry watches him despondently, now numb to his shoulder. The man looks over him with pity, before he leans, pulling himself closer. Harry tries to get further away, glasses catching on the ground and slipping off his head, but Loki reaches, hand touching his warm, feeling shoulder and…

Nothing. There’s no pain, no icy burning sensation. Harry blinks fuzzily at him, before wondering if his earlier assessment was false, because Loki did not have blue skin or ridges in them. Black hair like Harry’s flips around his face, but that face is pale as snow, just like his own.

“I am no master of healing, but I am a master of magic, a true sorcerer. I shall attempt to fix what I have done to your arm,” he says, before pulling Harry’s arm from where he lies it against his chest and even Harry without his glasses can see how horribly black his skin is, how frozen and stiff it is. Loki gently runs his hand over it, golden light emanating from his palm. Harry feels an intense prickling, like pins and needles before he feels a terrible pain, letting out a cry and attempting to pull his arm away – the key word being ‘attempting’. Loki shushes him, gently pulling him against his chest.

“Stay still, young one,” he says, an arm locking around Harry’s waist, the hand grasping Harry’s numbed elbow to keep it in place as his hand heals the skin, making it bloom pink and red.

“ _Harry! Harry!_ ” Hagrid’s voice echoes through the wood, causing him to jerk slightly, Loki keeping him in place as he heals his arm. It prickles more as it becomes less numb, turning into pain before becoming soothed by Loki’s healing magic.

“How- how can you do that without a wand?” Harry hiccoughs slightly, using his free hand to wipe his face hurriedly as he sees Hagrid’s shape loom out in the darkness past the brambles, lamp a faint pinprick.

“A wand is a focussing tool, like a staff. All my most complex magics are drawn from within,” Loki replies patiently, still holding Harry against him as he finishes healing him. “I can sense your magic, child. It is far different from my own, yet there are talents that could yet be improved upon. Would you like me to tell you?”

Harry struggles with thinking, Hagrid getting closer and closer, Loki still not letting go… “You’re still breathing strangely,” Harry realises, able to feel Loki’s lungs deflate and expand through his back. “What happened to you?”

“ _Harry!_ ” Hagrid comes close enough to see them, Fang whimpering and Neville, Hermione and Draco staying behind the giant of a man. “Oi, let him go! He’s just a kid!”

And with that, Loki changes, grip like stone as he chuckles darkly. “Yes, he is. If you want him alive, then you will help me.”

“Not bloody likely!” Hagrid comes closer, crossbow aimed at Loki’s head, anger taking over his face. “You let Harry go!” Harry feels a pang for Hagrid, for his loyalty and anger on his behalf, a kind of betrayal seeping from him at Loki’s actions.

“You let him wander,” Loki says in a drawl, “This forest is teeming with neutral and chaotic magics and yet, you let him walk around looking for such a monster that would kill _unicorns_.” The word is said with venom but Harry doesn’t exactly care as he struggles against Loki’s grip.

“Let Harry go!” Hermione yells, frightened.

“He’s called Loki, he can do magic without a wand-” Harry starts.

“Potter, stay still,” Draco speaks suddenly, interrupting, a knowing fear in his voice, “Potter-”

Loki tuts. “Names are power. You should not use them lightly. Harry Potter. Estate ruler. Army ruler. A potter tradesman. You should change your name if you are not to be those things, child – it’s not very becoming of a warlock.”

“The Potter Estate was destroyed in the War. Father says its riches were used to fund the Order of the Phoenix,” Draco says, voice shaking.

“You quiet, Malfoy,” Hagrid growls.

Loki pauses, “A pity, for both of you. Bad faith, such a shame – though you could yet still be the ruler of an army, or a potter tradesman.” Loki gets to his feet then, only Harry hearing the small hitch of his breath as he’s lifted off the ground. At the change in position, Harry kicks, but Loki is quick to tighten his grip as a warning. Harry stills, the strength of his arm around him the same, if not more than Hagrid’s – and far more controlled.

“Let. Harry. Go.” Hagrid orders in a dangerous voice, crossbow firing a shot by Loki’s head, disturbing a single hair and burrowing its way through a tree-trunk behind him. “That was a warning.”

Loki smiles gamely at him. “Fine.” Then, unexpectedly, Loki lets Harry down to the ground gently, Harry quick to stumble over, realising with a start that he can see without his glasses. _Did Loki heal my eyes, too?_

Hagrid reaches for his shoulder, roughly pulling him behind his huge bulk.

“It won’t do anything. My threat still hangs,” the strange man says.

“What do you mean?” Hermione questions.

Loki chuckles, “Why, look at his wrists – I’m sure even such a different magical society will recognise such a binding.” Harry makes a confused face, but Draco is already grabbing at him, pushing up his sleeves one by one, quickly showing the one that Loki had healed. Harry’s eyes widen at the sight of a golden cuff, seemingly painted onto his skin.

Poison green shapes mark the very edges, tiny and indistinguishable except for their differences, certainly no repeating pattern, the gold two and a half inches thick. Harry scratches at them, trying to get them off, but it doesn’t even go red.

“What did you do to me?”

“It’s a bonding cuff,” Neville says in a wobbly voice. “It means-”

“It means he can kill you,” Draco says flatly. “Forget the unicorn killer, oaf, we need to return to the castle – taking this man with us.”

Hagrid looks visibly uneasy at the sight of the cuff, but Harry looks to Loki, staring at the man who sways where he stands.

Slowly, his smile widens to show teeth.

* * *

Upon returning to the castle, they immediately go to Dumbledore’s office, the Headmaster quick to greet their uninvited guest and give him a seat, letting Hagrid and then Harry explain what happened, Hagrid’s temper getting the better of him before he can finish the story.

“He was hurt. I just wanted to help.” Harry mutters, before showing Dumbledore the golden band on his wrist, the old man immediately seeming to age another hundred years as he sits. Hermione questions what it is, Draco and Neville both having refused to tell her more than they already had about it. Even Hagrid had been quiet, when Harry asked – Loki himself had just smiled thinly.

“You would truly bind yourself to this child?” Dumbledore questions Loki in a small voice.

“If it ensures my safety and wellbeing, then yes. I need access to your healing wing and brewing laboratory.”

Dumbledore pierces Loki with a sharp gaze over his half-moon glasses. “Mr Potter is not the only child under my purview. The wellbeing of hundreds falls upon me. Unless you would swear vows and let yourself be supervised at all times, I would not allow you leave to roam the castle.” As if to back up his claim, frightening Harry and his fellow first-years, a bright red bird appears in a barrel of flame beside him, landing on a golden post.

Loki gasps at the sight of the bird, eyes widening. “A phoenix…no, I shall swear upon it, no child shall be harmed while I stay here. Only Harry Potter would be caused harm and that would only be if you harmed me, not for anything I did to him.”

“Can someone explain this bond-thing, please?” Harry interrupts finally, the words bursting out of his mouth. Loki looks to him sharply.

“I bound us together. We are now intricately attached in a way you are too young to comprehend. If I am harmed, you are harmed. If you are harmed, I am…made aware. Luckily, my physiology and proficiency in magic allows me much more leeway than you. What would be a life-threatening injury on me, would be a bothersome itch on you. What would be a scratch to you would be an itch to me. I will ensure you are not harmed, subsequently, for the sake of us both.”

Harry gapes at him. “But- but _how?_ You were _healing_ me, not making a- a _tattoo_. I watched you!”

“I performed an act of mercy, saving your life, Harry Potter, though your injury was through no fault but my own,” Loki says, smile fading. “However, the how only changes the level of debt owed. I, for lack of better word, hijacked an honour debt I owed you. It is why the bond is the way it is, other than through my meddling. All that I needed to do, finalising the bond, was hold onto you – and you let me. We sat together, willingly, skin on skin contact and it formed naturally.”

“If I may interrupt,” Dumbledore starts, “but that is not how it works.”

“In my land, it is,” Loki explains, “I am not from this realm, Dumbledore. Magic is far more close at hand, running through our blood and flesh, but less entwined with our souls, as your magic is – and Harry Potter had more than enough soul to bear witness.”

Harry, watching and listening closely to Loki, doesn’t catch how Dumbledore’s eyes widen.

“As part of the price for my magic, I removed a darkness from Harry. Does that satisfy you, knowing I have done such a thing?” Loki questions, Dumbledore hurriedly nodding.

“Yes, yes. I had noticed the difference immediately.”

“Difference?” Harry frowns. “What did you do to me?”

Loki glances at him- _no._

_My scar. He’s looking at my scar._

Harry’s hand flies to his forehead, expecting the familiar bumpy edges but…something is different. _Smooth. My forehead’s smooth._ Hermione gasps.

“Harry! Your scar – it’s not red anymore!”

“The darkness is gone,” Loki nods, waving his hand. “It will no longer be such a parasitic leech upon your soul and magic.”

“Oh,” Harry starts, eyes widening.

Dumbledore lets Loki stay.

* * *

It’s a mixture of a gift, a burden and an embarrassment to have Loki follow him around. No matter where he goes, Loki is at least ten yards away. The only time Harry for sure knows Loki isn’t there is when he goes up into his dorm to sleep and talk in privacy with Ron, Hermione and his other roommates.

“I swear, I will not go up there,” Loki had promised, eyes like steel. While everyone else thought he was a liar – that he spied on everyone, that he was a _paedophile_ – Harry believed him. If there was one thing Harry had picked up about Loki, it was that he adored children and kept them safe. When he heard of the third floor corridor and the death that apparently awaited them if they went there, he had immediately gone on a trip, returning a few nerve-wracking hours later with an angry expression. Everyone in Gryffindor had avoided him as he paced in front of the fireplace, Slytherin green armour – clean of blood – at odds with the crimson of their common room.

Harry mentions it later, nearer exam time. “You don’t really match.”

“I never do,” he replies with a small smile. “It’s a recurring theme in my life. My apologies, for the disruption of your House’s aesthetic.” To Harry’s surprise, the next day, Loki wears far less than he usually does, dressing in a black muggle suit, sans the jacket and tie. When Harry has trouble with his potions essay later, he rolls up his sleeves, sitting down and conjuring an illusion of the ingredients.

“Tell me the properties of each that are relevant to your potion.”

 Harry furrows his brow. “Uh…” he pauses, before pointing at each, naming one or two facts he knows about them that he learnt for the burn salve they’re studying. Once he’s done, he glances up at Loki, immediately losing some wind from his sails at Loki’s disappointed look. “What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t answer the question the way I’d hoped you’d been taught. Potion-making is an art, but it is not like a regular art. For potioneering, you must know the basic components of all your ingredients, understanding all their properties and significant meanings.” Loki waves his hand, the illusions disappearing to be replaced by one of a simple daisy. “What do you know of the flower?”

“It’s, uh…used in growing and shrinking potions. It’s a weed, too.”

“Do you know _why_ they are used in size potions?” Loki questions.

“No,” Harry shakes his head, rocking a little on the ground, getting a kink out of his crossed legs. He’d sat down near Loki’s feet, using the available table space that his House-mates wouldn’t touch, for fear of getting too near the strange, powerful sorcerer who could disappear in the blink of an eye and bind himself to the Boy-Who-Lived without consequences.

“Daisies are a special kind of flower, for they are two flowers in one,” Loki waves his hand, the daisy image enlarging to show him, splitting apart. “Because of how they fit so perfectly together, daisies oft-times symbolise true love; but it is because of the shape, the size of each dual component fitting so neatly together, that they are able to be used in size potions. The smaller flower section is used in shrinking potions and the larger, growing potions.”

Harry furrows his brow. “Okay.”

“Daisies also have the strange power to open as the sun rises and close as they set, depending on the breed,” Loki goes on. “So daisies are associated with day rather than night. You will find that adding daisies as an alternative ingredient to a potion meant for use during the nighttime will render it mute, useless, or unstable. Time of day collected affects an ingredients properties, too.”

“Oh,” Harry’s eyes widen as he remembers one of Snape’s scathing lectures. “Wait, so that’s why you use noon-picked cleavers in a Vitamin Draught rather than midnight-picked cleavers?”

“I do not know what you mean by ‘cleavers’ – does it have another name?”

Hermione, on the armchair opposite where Loki had been sat, speaks up at this point. “Cleavers is another name for goosegrass, as is sticky willow, grip grass, catchweed and robin-run-the-hedge.”

“Ahh, thank-you, Miss Granger,” Loki nods at Harry. “Yes, definitely. Sticky willow or cleaver, as you call it, dramatically changes properties between midnight and noon, as all ingredients do. Picking cleavers at night would result in a far less beneficial ingredient than noon-picked cleavers, as a Vitamin Draught would require what you might call ‘light’ items, rather than so-called ‘dark’ items.”

Over the weeks leading up to the holidays, Loki does this more often – helping him with his homework and going over concepts he misunderstands in certain subjects. Harry notes that he doesn’t do anything the help anyone else specifically, but doesn’t do anything to prevent them from listening or asking questions. Lucky for Harry, Hermione still doesn’t like Loki enough to interrogate him. Even after fixing his scar, Hermione doesn’t feel like Loki deserves her trust.

“He bound you together and all the books I’ve read say you can’t _do_ that, Harry. He’s breaking _all_ the rules of magic and I worry about you,” she hugs him tightly, Harry looking awkwardly over her shoulder to Ron, who shrugs just as awkwardly, as if saying, _girls._

* * *

Professor Quirrell disappears halfway through exams, disrupting classes and causing a lot of panic-attacks in the older students. His classes get filled in by an Auror – a member of the Wizarding police force. Seeing her at the front of the classroom in her fancy red robes, golden bars on her shoulder displaying her rank as Captain, Harry suddenly has a dream: he wants to be an Auror.

“It sounds like a good choice of career path,” Loki says when he mentions it. “Captain Deirdre certainly seemed competent and from what things I’ve heard about the Auror Force, they appear to be good at their jobs, if short-staffed.”

“Do you have a job?” Harry asks him, causing Loki to blink in surprise.

“I…no. Not in the usual sense. I was born into a position of high class and stature. The responsibilities that came with it were a job in themselves and I was often volunteered to do my brothers work, too. He had no sense for paperwork, preferring to work with the people.”

“You have a brother?”

“No,” Loki immediately says, pursing his lips. “Becoming an Auror seems to be a worthwhile dream. Do not squander your education, Harry.”

“You’re much better at teaching than some of the professors,” Harry scowls, thinking of Snape.

“Do not speak ill of your professors, Harry,” Loki admonishes, before summoning an illusion of a potion, one that smells and bubbles, making soft popping noises. “Identify this.”

* * *

It’s only the day before they leave Hogwarts that Harry wonders how Loki is going to stalk him while he lives with the Dursley’s.

“The answer is simpler than you may think, child,” Loki replies in amusement. “Though, it requires you answer this: do you truly love your family and wish to return to them?”

Harry doesn’t answer for a while, knowing enough of his friend not to answer straight away. He thinks of the Dursley’s – thinks of his cupboard and his new room, only given to him under pressure. He thinks of Uncle Vernon’s loud voice and purple face, of Dudley and his friends and their stupid games, of Aunt Petunia and her distainful looks, sneers and gossiping.

“No.”

“No?”

“No and no. Take me away, somewhere far away, please, Loki.”

Loki smiles. “Your wish is my command.”

When they arrive at Kings Cross, Loki is at Harry’s side, dressed in his usual suit – but wearing the matching tie and jacket, hair slicked back and tied with a leather strip. Vernon glares at Harry as he approaches, but when he sees Loki, his expression turns into one of suspicion and perplexity.

“Who are you?”

“I am Loki and Harry is now my son.” He says the words clearly and Harry has to look up, he has to because- because Loki just called him his _son._ “Harry will never return to your care. The correct papers will be sent by letter. Number four of Privet Drive is not his home any longer – is it, Harry?”

“No, it’s not,” Harry shakes his head, Vernon agreeing and turning swiftly. Something strange fills Harry’s belly as he disappears into the crowd, a gasp leaving his mouth.

_I’m not going back there. I’m never going back to Privet Drive._

“Come now, Harry, let us go home,” Loki says softly, before taking his hand, the two of them disappearing from Kings Cross.

* * *

Asgard is the most beautiful place Harry has ever seen – except Hogwarts. The streets and buildings are soft golds and browns, the palace a tall, shining monument. Upon arriving through the Bifrost, the gatekeeper, Heimdall, greets Loki in a strange language that sounds foreign to Harry’s ears before offering Harry a change of clothes. He changes out of his over-large, ratty muggle clothes, Loki gladly disposing of them in a blaze of fire, keeping a weather eye out for anyone traversing the Rainbow Bridge as Harry pulls on what must have been Loki’s own childhood clothes.

“Your hair could do with some work,” Loki muses after he’s done, tugging a little at the thick metal bracelets around his wrists, one of which hides their bond tattoo with ease. Harry ducks his head as Loki runs his hand through the thick mess. “Do you remember when I told you that you had talents, that could be improved, the first time we met?”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” Loki corrects.

“Yes.”

“You speak the tongue of serpents, like me,” Loki says, getting a nod. “You also have the gift of shapeshifting, though it would mean lots of practice to fully shift, as I do.”

Harry’s eyes widen. “I can shapeshift?”

“Only so much, as of right now. However, with my help, we might be able to tame that head of yours.” Loki steps closer, pressing his hand to Harry’s cheek. “It is all about intent. You have such a connection to your magic that it should be easy, though I know that recognising your magic will be much harder. Do you know what it feels like, your magic? Can you remember casting a spell, how it feels through your wand? Can you find that inside of you?”

Harry shuts his eyes, thinking of casting spells, feeling that warmth in his wand. But that was in his wand. _Inside of me – but where?_ Harry tries to think of a time where he’d felt magic and eventually comes up with – surprisingly – the day in the zoo, remembering the bubble in his chest bursting. He thinks of that, reaching for _that bubble_ and there’s a jerk as he feels something. It’s like trying to hold water though and he nearly becomes overwhelmed by it, before Loki murmurs.

“Think of changing your appearance. Think of smoothing your hair, making it silky and maybe even a little longer.”

Harry thinks of it, Loki’s words inspiring him. He thinks of Loki’s own head, imagining his own hair like that and he feels the water glide through him to his scalp, his head itching before he lets the magic go, opening his eyes to find himself with a strand of hair in his eyes. Blinking, he reaches up, pushing it back, awing at the feeling of soft, smooth hair that reaches down and down, heavy…

“It’s really long.”

“Like mine,” Loki grins, before moving around to behind Harry, gently pulling his hair back into what must have been a leather tie, the sensation unfamiliar but oddly calming. “Now, Allspeak usually is given to those newly arrived on Asgard without it automatically, but you, my son-” _son, I’m his son_ “-are a powerful young warlock and must give permission.”

“Uh…I give permission?” Harry says it and immediately moves back, bumping into Loki as he blinks dazedly, his thoughts suddenly all jumbled up. “Woah, what…”

“Young one, now that we understand each other,” Heimdall starts, bowing his head. “Welcome to Asgard. I am Heimdall, Gatekeeper and Guardian of the Bifrost.”

“Hello, Heimdall,” Harry greets, befuddled that he can suddenly understand the man. _Is this Allspeak? I mean…all, speak._ “It’s nice to meet you.”

Heimdall chuckles, voice low. “And you, young prince.”

“Prince?” Harry frowns, Loki making a noise.

“Heimdall!”

“Wait, are you a _king?_ ” Harry’s eyes widen in shock.

“No, just a prince,” Loki is quick to say, “and most assuredly second in line, do not worry, Harry.”

Harry swallows, eyeing him uneasily. “Alright.”

They soon depart from the Bifrost, going across the Rainbow Bridge and entering the city. Once inside, everyone is quick to hail Loki, yelling of his return – and whispering of the boy beside him. Harry ignores them with practice from being the Boy-Who-Lived, panic slowly dying at the realisation that Loki truly wasn’t a king. _I hope I never have to rule Asgard_ , he thinks, looking up at all the tall structures. _I know nothing of this place._

“Brother! It is high time you returned!”

Loki stiffens, grip tightening around his hand, Harry looking to the speaker and finding a blonde man with a wide smile and red and silver armour to Loki’s green and gold. His eyes fall on Harry and immediately, the smile becomes confused.

“Who is this?”

“Thor, meet my son, Harry. Harry, meet Odin Allfather’s firstborn son and heir, Thor,” Loki says, voice bitter.

“A nephew?” Thor’s eyebrows rise, before they lower, eyes suspicious. “And one in humanoid form? Is this another trick, Loki, is he truly a beast wrapped in a glamour?”

Harry gives Thor a weird look, glancing at Loki. “Was he dropped on his head as a baby or something?”

Loki’s lip quirks. “If he was, it would explain many things, child.”

“Loki-” Thor’s voice is impatient and in an instant, Harry tenses, stepping behind Loki.

Loki glares. “He’s not glamoured. The most magic used on his appearance is to fix his most unruly hair. It was truly bothersome. He is not like his brothers.” _I have brothers?_ Harry looks around at the people watching them, most silent now. Breathing in deeply, Harry looks to Thor, who is now apparently his uncle.

“Why are all my uncles so angry?” He questions in a mumble, Loki glancing back and down at him, expression softening.

“Thor is just weary. Your siblings were and are different from normal children in ways that make them…difficult to deal with.”

“Are they disabled?” Harry asks sharply, becoming slightly angry at the thought of disabled kids being treated badly for just being disabled. _Especially if they’re supposedly my brothers, now_. His hand tightens around Loki’s and he feels a pressure inside of him – the bubble, his magic, growing and pulsing, wanting justice.

“In ways,” Loki says, before looking to Thor. “Harry will be staying here for some few months then returning to his planet of origin. I only wish to introduce him to mother.”

At the mention of their mother, Thor seems to wilt, calming. “Of course. If you are lying, she will sense it. Come, brother, nephew.”

Which is how Thor leads them through Asgard, gamely asking Harry questions.

“Have you been on any quests? Felled mighty beasts?”

“Well…” Harry glances at Loki, pursing his lips and wondering if Loki had found out about the full series of events of his first year in Hogwarts. “I did…fell, a troll and I helped get a baby dragon to safety after it hatched without a mother.”

Thor’s laughter booms through the street, “Truly, you are Loki’s son! Saving a dragon hatchling, really – Loki, does that not remind you of when you saved that níðhöggr nest from being trampled? Harry, I swear, your actions bring me much mirth.”

“Right,” Harry mutters, fiddling with his bracelets again. “I supposedly vanquished Lord Voldemort when I was a baby, too. He was a Dark Lord. He murdered my- my mother,” Harry quickly stops himself from saying _my parents_ , glancing at Loki, whose neutral expression betrayed nothing.

Upon his words, Thor frowns. “A strange feat.”

“His mother was a powerful sorceress in her own right,” Loki interjects. “Though, because of her lineage, amongst the majority of her own people she was not thought well of. It was probably a protective magic – before I found Harry, he had _Sowilo_ on his forehead.”

Thor actually stops then, almost tripping over his own feet. He reaches for Harry, large thumb pressing to his forehead. Harry goes to move away, but Loki keeps him steady and he feels a strange heat, before a soft yellow glows above his eyes.

“Yes, I remember,” Thor rumbles surprisingly gently. He stands up straight. “I was ill for a fort-month, dealing with the after-effects of that ritual. I would do it again, gladly, especially knowing now that t’was my own nephew who my rune protected.”

“Your rune?”

“Later, Harry,” Loki mutters, “To the palace, Thor?”


	7. #time warp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wherein, there are time travellers, a new professor and a boy called Edward Potter.

The new DADA teacher is a witch who wears a striped Gryffindor jumper at the staff table. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun on top of her head, raven curls glossy and round spectacles reflecting candlelight and there’s clearly a wand-holster attached to her left arm. Students watch as she talks to the Headmaster and Madam Hooch enthusiastically, grinning toothily.

At the Gryffindor table, emptying out his shoe of water, Harry leans closer to his friends. “She looks decent enough, I suppose.”

“That’s an alumni jumper,” Ron replies, enthusiasm only slightly dampened by how soaked he is. “She must have been on the team! What position do you think she played?”

“Honestly, is quidditch _all_ you care about?” Hermione rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “You would think she’d be encouraged not to show favouritism. She isn’t even wearing robes.”

“I think they’re on her seat,” Harry points out, seeing the tell-tale sign of fabric over the back of her chair. The funny thing is though, her robes don’t look much like robes.

“That’s a jacket,” Hermione corrects.

“Huh,” Harry ponders that, peering at her across the hall. Her skin is the same colour as his own – brown, like caramel, remarkable similar in shade – and they even have the same type of glasses. Harry swears, as he looks harder, that she even has the same colour of eyes.

Madam Hooch, standing between her chair and the Headmaster’s, nods suddenly, standing up straight. Harry sees her yellow eyes flash around the room, pausing every so often. She even looks at _him_ , head dipping in greeting. Harry does the same, looking along the staff table as he does. At the far end on a pile of cushions sits Professor Flitwick, their half-goblin charms teacher, who looks to be rather absorbed with a book. Next along the table are the teachers Harry knows to be Hermione’s arithmancy and ancient runes professors, Professor Vector and Professor Babbling. Beside them, the professors Sprout and Sinistra, their herbology and astronomy teachers, are stuck in conversation.

To their right sits Harry’s most hated teacher, Severus Snape. He looks balefully over the hall, wand flashing with blue briefly to stop an altercation between Slytherins and Ravenclaws sitting near where the first-years would be sat, after the Sorting. Then, on Professor Snape’s other side is presumably Professor McGonagall’s seat, then Albus Dumbledore’s.

Their as-yet unnamed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, the witch in the Gryffindor jumper, claps to herself beside him, clearly quite happy with the conclusion of her conversation – Madam Hooch moving away two seats to sit between Madam Pomfrey and the muggle studies teacher, Professor Burbage, strangely leaving the seat beside the new DADA Professor empty.

Above them, in the enchanted ceiling, the sky crackles with lightning, thunder rolling in the background.

“I could eat a bloody hippogriff,” Ron moans, craning his neck to see the closed entrance hall. “Can they hurry up?”

The words are no sooner out of his mouth when Professor McGonagall strides in, followed by the tiny, sopping first-years who seem to have swam across the lake rather than sailed. Events quickly carry on from there, the Sorting Hat singing a different song from last year and a plethora of first-years being Sorted.

Harry nearly breaks his neck when the _P_ section comes around, head snapping up in shock.

“Potter, Edward,” Professor McGonagall calls out the name, seeming perturbed. Harry – like many others – moves so he can see the small boy who steps up onto the platform. The resemblance is even more disturbing than the name.

Dark hair, dark skin…Edward Potter smiles though, as he nervously sits down, looking up at the Hat just in time to get a face full. Snorts echo through the Hall, along with muffled laughter before Professor McGonagall corrects the positioning. Edward’s eyes close and for a few moments, there’s silence.

Behind him, at the staff table, the new DADA Professor leans forwards.

“… _HUFFLEPUFF!_ ”

A round of applause comes, though it’s subdued. At the staff table, though, the witch in the DADA jumper lets out a shrill whistle, exchanging a set of thumbs up with the boy. Their grins are identical as he takes his place at Hufflepuff table, the new professor’s eyes glimmering with unabashed pride.

Harry finds himself out of sorts as the Sorting continues. He keeps looking at the professor and…her son? The resemblance between them in uncanny and Harry almost wishes there was a mirror, so he could look at himself and properly analyse his face. Does he look like that? Do they look like him? Why is that boy named _Potter_ and are they his relatives?

Suddenly, Harry’s heart is pounding. _Do I have another aunt?_ He stares at the professor, for the first time in a few years thinking back to the Mirror of Erised, of men and women with knobbly knees and messy black hair. What happened to his _father’s_ family? Does he have aunts and uncles out there? Grandparents? Cousins?

“I don’t understand,” Hermione hisses as the Sorting finishes, her words hidden under a round of applause. “The Potter’s all died, right?”

“Supposedly,” Ron mumbles, just as confused as Harry. The three exchange glances, before looking up to where Professor Dumbledore now stands, glass clinking.

“I have only two words to say to you all, now,” he says, deep voice echoing through the Great Hall, “Tuck in.”

Moments later the feast appears, but Harry is far from hungry. His stomach rumbles, though and soon he digs in, briefly forgetting why he was so morose. But it barely takes more than seeing a flash of Hufflepuff yellow to remember his troubles.

“Do you think they could be related to me?” Harry asks his friends tentatively.

“Well, statistically, it’s unlikely – think of all the people named John Smith in the world,” Hermione says. “But I’ve found that in the Wizarding World, well…”

“Probably,” Ron gives his own answer through a mouthful of potatoes.

Harry barely listens to the ensuing conversations. Nearly-Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, talks about how Peeves made a swimming pool of the kitchens from soup, Hermione becoming appalled at how many house-elves live and work at Hogwarts.

“Slave labour,” she says, “That’s what made this dinner. Slave labour.”

Once dinner and pudding have been swept away, crumbs and all, Dumbledore once more stands and calls everyone to attention.

“So, now that we are all fed and waters, I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices,” the Headmaster pronounces with an easy smile. “First of all, Mr Filch, our resident caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle this year has been extended to include screaming yo-yos, fanged frisbees and ever-bashing boomerangs. The fill list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe and can be viewed in Mr Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.”

The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitch. He continues, “and as ever, I wold like to remind you all that the forest of on the grounds is out-of-bound to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.”

“It is also my duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not be organised the same way this year – in fact, all House teams this year are to be newly arranged entirely.”

“What?” Harry gasps, not understanding. Around the room, similar murmurs of confusion reach his years. Harry can see Fred and George looking rather open-mouthed further back down the table.

Dumbledore keeps speaking. “These changes will be fully discussed at a later date, but until other matters are arranged, I am afraid that the Quidditch Cup is cancelled.”

There is a minor roar in defiance – only for the noise to be fully silenced by the banging of the entrance hall doors.

Shadow looming behind him, the figure holds a cane and Harry is briefly overtaken with a deep sense of foreboding. A flash of lightning illuminates them briefly, foot clunking loudly in the silent hall as the man – and they _are_ a man – walks up to the staff table. Another flash of lightning puts their features into sharp relief and Hermione gasps at the scarred visage it reveals, though Harry is more focused on the clearly magical, spinning eye that moves up, down and around – spinning all the way backwards to show the white.

Dumbledore, when the man reaches the podium, shakes his hand. Harry watches him as he sits down beside the unfamiliar witch, who watches him with trepidation.

“…as I was saying, until further notice, the Quidditch Cup as you know it is cancelled,” Dumbledore says, voice sedate. “May I introduce Professors Moody and Potter, who will be working in conjunction with each other to cover both Defence Against the Dark Arts and the newly-revived History of Magic positions.”

Hushed whispers immediately spready through the Hall, breaking the silence that Moody had brought. Harry is too shocked to ask Ron whether this _Moody_ is the man that his father went to help this very morning.

“Professor Binns, our resident ghost professor, will be available still,” Dumbledore continues after a long moment, eyes twinkling, “though I’m sure you will all take advantage of his new retirement to improve your grades in Professor Potter’s class.”

 _Potter. There it is again,_ Harry thinks, the name like a gong in his head.

“So _she’s_ the History of Magic professor?” someone calls out, voice extra-loud to be heard.

Dumbledore inclines his head, “As many of you know, Hogwarts has always had…trouble, keeping it’s Defence Professors. This new system will perhaps shed some light on how to avoid such a thing, in the following terms.”

More whispers. More hushed murmurs. Harry is still stuck on _Professor Potter._

“And now, for my main announcement,” Dumbledore says, straightening where he stands. “This year, we are honoured to host a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that this year, Hogwarts will be hosting…”

Dumbledore’s smile thins, but his excitement is no less apparent.

“The Triwizard Tournament.”

* * *

Harry expects to be in either Defence or History when he first runs into Professor Potter. Unexpectedly, however, it is in neither, for when he climbs up the silver ladder into Professor Trelawney’s perfumed divination tower, Professor Potter is there, having tea with the batty woman.

“Uh,” Harry startles, nearly falling backwards through the trap-door. Only Ron’s quick grab of his school uniform stops him from dropping and bringing Lavender down with him.

“Oh! Hello,” Professor Potter smiles when she sees them. “Sorry – the professor and I were just discussing todays lesson. She agreed to let me lead a discussion about prophecy.”

“Right,” Harry mutters, before walking over to a table, sitting down on a chair with a back, leaving Ron and Neville with the low, long pouffe. Harry watches the other Potter as the class fills up, his peers taking their seats and chatting quietly as they wait for the bell to ring.

When it does ring, Professor Trelawney rises, arms reaching outwards.

“Good day to you all!” she says, in an explicably good mood as she motions to Professor Potter. “My inner eye has never been clearer and it is my greatest pleasure to invite a guest to talk of prophecy and how the alignment of stars and planetary luminosity can affect the portents!”

“Thank-you, Professor,” Potter touches her elbow, drawing her to her seat. “Hello, class. I’m going to be lecturing you today, seeing as my first-years today are being paired up with a third year Defence class to learn about the magic around Hogwarts, defensive and otherwise. I know you’ve been studying divination a year now, so you should all know what a prophecy is – but just to be sure, can you raise your hand if you _do_ know?”

Harry slowly raises his hand, along with the rest of the class. He watches her eyes skip over them all, humming. Then, her hand dips into her pocket and she withdraws a crystal ball, wand suddenly twirling in her hand.

“This here is a prophecy, straight from the Department of Mysteries. When a prophecy is made, it is automatically recorded and stored on the shelves. It’s old magic – ancient magic, even. The Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic had to transplant the Great Druidic Archive within its depths to both keep the magic running and keep the prophecies safe.” She pauses, flashing a grin, “You’ll learn more about that in History with me, so keep listening if you want a leg-up on your assignments.”

A subtle shift rings through the class. Harry and Ron spare each other a grin, both thinking, _Hermione’s going to hate this._ It’s not often that extracurricular lessons overlap with core classes. She’ll be irritated that she missed it.

“Prophecies gathered in the Department of Mysteries are protected by many enchantments – many naturally occurring. Do any of you know what those are?”

Parvati puts her hand up, even as Harry blinks over the term _naturally occurring_. Professor Potter nods to her. “Aren’t they types of wards? Ones that- uh, ones that show up when the magic is _just_ right? Like- like, the place and the time?”

“Somewhat. It’s tricky to explain,” Professor Potter says, tilting her head back and forth. “Naturally-occurring magic is almost impossible to predict, outside of known magical phenomena. For instance, the annual Yule Lights at Stonehenge or the Incan _Labirinto de Floresta_ in Brazil.”

Parvati blurts out, “What about the frost snakes from the Himalayas?”

Professor Potter shakes her head in disagreement. “An argument could be made over whether they are a naturally-occurring magical beast or a product of their environment, but Professor Hagrid is the one to ask, not me.”

It makes him feel bad, but Harry has to wonder if Hagrid actually knows what ‘naturally occurring magical phenomena’ is, let alone if Hagrid can answer Parvati’s question.

“Around prophecies like these, wards form to protect them. Prophecies are never made by accident or on purpose,” Potter lectures, walking closer to the class, showing them the crystal ball. It’s small and smoke almost seems to waft around in silence – but even as she walks past them, Harry thinks he sees something or maybe even _someone_ , a whisper brushing through the edge of his hearing. “The stars must be in the right place. The planets must be on the right axis and in one moment, where the heavens are in alignment with Earth, magic _sparks_. Creation. The powers of an Oracle _click_ , like a puzzle-piece falling into place.”

Professor Potter pauses, the moment heavy. “For one moment, all is right and all is wrong. Two moments in time connect, past and future. Those with the prerequisite powers can divine that future from images or whispers – and the more powerful they are, the more consequences. Oracles are so powerful even non-magical folk know of them and have trusted them in days gone by. You are lucky to have Professor Trelawney as your teacher.”

“Lucky?” Harry mutters to himself, of the opinion that Professor Trelawney has bats for brains.

“Yes, _lucky_ , Mr Potter,” Professor Potter says sharply. Harry flushes, not realising he’d been so loud. Her wand flicks, tapping the prophecy in her hand. Even as they watch, a ghostly image rises from its depths and to Harry’s shock, it’s Professor Trelawney – and her words are dreadfully familiar.

“ _THE DARK LORD LIES ALONE AND FRIENDLESS, ABANDONED BY HIS FOLLOWERS. HIS SERVANT HAS BEEN CHAINED THESE TWELVE YEARS. TONIGHT, THE SERVANT WILL BREAK FREE AND SET OUT TO REJOIN HIS MASTER. THE DARK LORD WILL RISE AGAIN WITH HIS SERVANTS AID, GREATER AND MORE TERRIBLE THAN HE EVER WAS. TONIGHT, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, THE SERVANT WILL SET OUT TO REJOIN HIS MASTER…_ ”

Harry leaps to his feet. “How did it know that?” he demands, heart beating wildly.

“As I said,” Professor Potter says calmly. “Prophecies are automatically recorded in the Department of Mysteries. I picked this one up myself, to show the class. I saw that you were the witness to your professor’s moment as an Oracle.”

“I-” Harry stutters, sitting back down abruptly. He avoids looking at his classmates, who look at him with wide eyes.

“There are thousands and thousands of prophecies in the Department of Mysteries. Many will never come true, for no-one ever heard them and the naturally-occurring wards around each copy in the Ministry don’t allow those they are not _of_ to touch them.” Potter tucks her wand into her holster, tossing the prophecy orb between her hands. “Who here knows about the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies?”

Potter doesn’t wait for hands, continuing on even as she deposits the prophecy into Professor Trelawney’s grasp, who obviously is quite proud of her achievement. “A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prophecy that has been heard and then acted upon. One example of such is the story of Oedipus – the original motherfucker.”

Harry’s eyes bug, Ron’s mouth dropping open. Professor Potter flashes them a grin before speaking.

“Oedipus is a character from Greek mythos. His father, Laius, was told that his son would kill him one day and so Laius gave Oedipus up for adoption. When Oedipus grew up, he was told the same prophecy. However, Oedipus was unaware of his true origins and so left his foster-parents in hope he would never see them dead. He journeyed across the land and got into a fight with a stranger, whom he killed. He then married his widow, who also happened to be his mother. Oedipus killed his father, just as was prophesised.”

“Laius wanted to avoid his son ever killing him,” Professor Potter lectures, “but by trying to avoid fate, he made it happen. It is in the nature of human beings to act with knowledge given to them, whether to their interest or detriment. When it comes to prophecies, avoiding something could very well make it true or vice versa. Once a prophecy is known, either it comes to pass or it does not.”

Dean raises his hand. “Professor?”

“Yes, Mr Thomas?” Potter queries.

“How do you know what prophecies are true or not?”

“Every prophecy is true,” the witch replies in a stately manner. “As soon as they’re heard, events are set in motion; and before you ask about the unfulfilled prophecies that ‘no-one heard’, Oracles don’t remember their prophecies. It’s why the copies are so important. The druids and shamans of the ancient magical world created the Great Archive in an attempt to gather that knowledge, preserving it where human memory would fail.”

“Why, though?” Harry questions, meeting Professor Potter’s eyes. As she smiles, he recognises the same emerald green as his own glinting back at him beneath wire spectacles.

“Sometimes, events need to be recognised,” Potter states, “for they mean more than they first appear. The prophecy the class just heard, for example – you know what some of it means, yes? Would you like to tell your peers?”

“…not really,” Harry says, not knowing why himself. _It was about Pettigrew,_ he figures, _but I got distracted when I tried to talk about it. Professor Trelawney didn’t remember._

“Professor, if you would allow me?” Potter says to Trelawney, picking up a pile of parchment and dispersing them with her wand at a nod from the older witch. Each piece of parchment flits across the class, landing in front of students. Harry reads it, mind reeling. It seems so simple, written down with the date in the top left-hand corner, but at the same time…it’s a terrifying prospect.

 _Voldemort is going to come back with Pettigrew’s help_ , he thinks.

“Interpretation of prophecies, as exemplified by Laius over Oedipus, is difficult and oft-times prone to mistakes,” Professor Potter states. “For the next ten minutes, in groups, I’d like you all to try interpreting this prophecy. Other than those at your tables, no discussion is allowed. I’d like you to try divining whom the prophecy concerns, what timeframe the prophecy discusses and why the prophecy was spoken in the first place.”

“But miss, isn’t that unfair?” one of the Ravenclaws asks, “You said Harry would _know._ ”

“This isn’t being marked,” she says in return, “After you finish discussing it, you’ll compare notes with your classmates. This is for fun as much as it is a lesson. Your interpretation can be outlandish as you want, so long as you think it’s realistic…now, get into groups.”

Harry and Ron find themselves in a rather large group, considering. Parvati and Lavender squeeze up between Ron and Neville, who barely avoids being pushed off the pouffe as Seamus and Dean bring across their chairs.

“So,” Seamus looks at Harry, “what’s the prophecy about?”

“Uh…” Harry swallows, chancing it. “Well, it was last year…when Sirius Black was about.”

Lavender squeaks, “It’s about _Black?_ ” Parvati rushes to write down his name on her parchment, but Harry quickly shakes his head.

“No! Sirius- he’s innocent, actually. Completely. He was framed.”

“Really?” Dean asks, wide-eyed. “Who framed him?”

“Scabbers,” Ron mutters, before elaborating as Lavender gives him a weird look. “He was an animagus, like McGonagall. He was hiding out in our house the entire time.”

Lavender puts a hand to her mouth, looking sick. “A wizard was pretending to be your _pet?_ But he was in the _dorms_ – the _tower!_ What kind of person is he? Could he have gotten past the wards on the girls stairs?”

Harry gives her a strange look, before realising what she’s getting at and feeling sick himself. “Let’s hope not,” he mutters. “His name was Peter Pettigrew. He and Sirius were friends at school – they were Gryffindors with Professor Lupin and my dad. Best friends.”

“Yeah and Pettigrew was the real Secret Keeper who gave up Harry’s parents to You-Know-Who,” Ron whispers to them, eyeing the surrounding tables, “He was a spy. A Death Eater.”

“And you shared a _dorm_ with him,” Lavender says, distraught. Harry isn’t prepared for how she flings herself at Ron, who startles at her sudden weight on his lap, arms wrapping around his neck.

Seamus edges closer to Dean. “It is kind of freaky,” he admits. “Why didn’t we get questioned by the Aurors?”

“Snape,” Harry mutters bitterly, fist clenching. In his hand, the parchment crinkles and rips. “He convinced Minister Fudge that we were all confounded by Sirius. Ha! Like he knew what was happening. Snape _hated_ my father and his friends. It’s why he told everyone about Professor Lupin being a werewolf.”

“What about the aurors?” Parvati questions, obviously horrified. “Surely they wouldn’t leave it at that!”

Harry looks away. He doesn’t expect Parvati to start shouting in another language, clearly _extremely angry._

“Miss Patil!” Professor Potter cuts her tirade off, before she replies back in the same language. Harry blinks in confusion, wondering what they’re saying. Parvati is ranting, obviously upset and angry about _something._ Whatever she says turns the teacher’s face dark.

“I’ll deal with it,” she says, looking to Harry and Ron. “Come to my office this evening, if you would. I’m in the same corridor as Professor Binns. Bring Hermione.”

Harry’s stomach flip-flops, but he nods. “Professor, can- can I be excused?”

“Of course, Harry,” she says and her voice is quiet. Harry gathers his bag, listening to Ron ask the same thing and getting permission to leave – along with the rest of their table.

Lavender keeps a hold of Ron’s arm the entire way to Gryffindor tower. Dean and Seamus are quiet. Neville is pale and he keeps sneaking looks at them both. Parvati looks…Parvati looks furious, actually. Harry falls into step with her.

“What were you saying, back there?” he asks her.

“I was complaining.” Her voice is short and vindicated. Harry looks down when he finds her hand winding into his, clenching tight. “You go through so many things every year. I told my parents over the holidays and they didn’t believe me. It’s not fair on you, when we _know_ what kind of danger you get into every year. You don’t even have parents to care.”

Harry looks away from their joined hands. “No, I don’t.”

“Do you think Professor Potter will take you in?” Parvati asks.

“I don’t even know her,” Harry says. He can’t help but look at their hands again. It’s a strange feeling, holding _hands._ Parvati’s hand is warm and not clammy. Her fingers are smooth and her nails are sparkly, painted Gryffindor red.

“You’re definitely related. You should ask her tonight,” Parvati says, meeting his eyes briefly, “I can come with you, if you want. For support.”

 _For support,_ Harry mouths to himself. “I mean…if you want,” he says, unsure.

Parvati eyes him critically. “I will,” she replies, squeezing lightly before dragging him up the stairs at a faster speed.

Hermione is far from impressed later, hearing they’re to go see a teacher _already_ , but as soon as Lavender starts babbling about _grown men, Aurors_ and _paedophiles_ , her judgement is less. What surprises Harry, though, is how his dormmates are insistent on going as well.

“He was in our dorm, _ours,_ ” Seamus says, lips pursed. “My mam’s going to have a fit if he memory-charmed any of us.”

“Memory-charmed?” Harry repeats, horrified.

“See, _this_ is why you should have told the Aurors rather than have let Professor Snape speak for you,” Parvati points out, before wincing at her own words. “That came out wrong.”

“It’s fine,” Hermione says briskly, “let’s just go.”

 


End file.
